BLOG | Words Matter

Jan 24, 2013
3 min

Carver’s Cathedral: Different Interpretations at Different Stages of Life

Heidi Moore writes wonderfully re-imagined modern stories based on Greek mythology, among other things. She is also a medical doctor and non-fiction feature writer, as well as mother and wife and friend. It’s a pleasure to host her here on the blog as she takes on Carver’s ending of Cathedral: * * * Raymond Carver has always been one of my favorite writers. If I could choose a style to emulate, it would be the minimalist. In Cathedral, Carver writes sentences like, “She told

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Jan 23, 2013
4 min

Naming the Voice: Prejudice and Change in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”

Clifford Garstang wrote two of the best books I read last year (links at the end of this post) and I am happy to host his contribution to the discussion of Carver’s classic story, Cathedral. * * * There are two aspects of Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” that I always raise in a discussion with students. The more important of these is the voice of the narrator, but it also strikes me that the characters’ names are also significant. We see just three characters in the story: the h

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Jan 22, 2013
3 min

The Effective Use of Authorial Judgment in Carver’s Cathedral

<img class="size-medium wp-image-1311 lazyload" alt="Brad Windhauser is an author, teacher, and blogger." src="https://ericswyatt.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/brad.jpg?w=265" width="265" height="300" /> Brad Windhauser is an author, teacher, and blogger. We will start our week with Raymond Carver’s story, Cathedral, with an essay about the choices Carver made, as written by my friend, Brad Windhauser. * * * Authors make several decisions when it comes to choices they make in a

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Dec 24, 2012
3 min

There’s No More Time To Shop: Here’s a List of Books to Buy Anyway!

All of the titles mentioned in this blog post (with the exception of out-of-print books) can be found here: http://astore.amazon.com/wileymag – Look under the category, “2012 List” (I know. Some of you don’t like Amazon. That’s fine. You can buy these books anywhere you choose to buy them. Thanks.) * * * It is Christmas Eve Day and if you haven’t finished buying gifts for the special writer in your life (or, yourself) then it’s too late! This isn’t one of those, “Hurry, it’s

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Dec 21, 2012
2 min

A Week With Dorothy Parker: You Were Perfectly Fine

I hope you enjoyed the essays I posted this week focused on Dorothy Parker’s classic story, You Were Perfectly Fine. Based on the blog traffic, you did, in fact, enjoy these posts. That makes me happy. Not because blog stats matter in the long run, but because I feel like the bigger piece of information here is that these essays were helpful and interesting. That’s all a blogger can hope for, really. In case you missed any of this week’s discussion (or if you are looking for

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Dec 20, 2012
3 min

A week with Dorothy Parker: Subtlety of Structure

[su_note](Editor’s Note: You can find even more posts about Dorothy Parker’s story, You Were Perfectly Fine, by checking out the Dorothy Parker category tag.)[/su_note] <img class="wp-image-1191 size-medium lazyload" src="https://wordsmatteresw.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/hmagruder-3_4-bw-240x300.jpg" alt="Writer and friend, Heather Magruder." width="240" height="300" /> Writer and friend, Heather Marshall Magruder. If you’re like me, when you think, Dorothy Parker, and

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Dec 19, 2012
3 min

A week with You Were Perfectly Fine: Wit, Wisecracking, & Calisthenics with words.

Ginger Pinholster is a writer and fellow graduate of the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. You can connect with her on Twitter. (Or, leave her a message here in the comments section, too!) *** “When you’re 18, they call it partying. When you’re 40, they call it, like, alcoholism.” This truism, borrowed from a comedian whose name I can’t remember, seems lost on the “pale young man” at the center of Dorothy Parker’s iconic short story, You Were Perfectly Fine. Her

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Dec 18, 2012
3 min

A Week with You Were Perfectly Fine: Dramatic Irony vs. Antithetical Discourse

Belinda Nicoll is the author of the memoir, Out of Sync, as well as a writing and life coach. (You can read an earlier interview I did with Belinda about her book, Out of Sync.) Check out her website at: www.myriteofpassage.com Belinda blogs on the topics of writing, creativity coaching, and expatriation – http://myriteofpassage.wordpress.com/ I asked Belinda to contribute to this week’s discussion of Dorothy Parker’s short story, You Were Perfectly Fine, which I kicked off

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Dec 17, 2012
1 min

In case you missed it: A Good Man is Hard to Find

Earlier today I kicked off my December guest blog blizzard which will focus on Dorothy Parker’s short story, You Were Perfectly Fine. In November, I hosted several of my favorite writer friends in a discussion of Flannery O’Connor’s story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. Just in case you missed some of the posts, I’ve collected them all below, with links. A brief introduction and links to A Good Man resources. Heather Magruder writes: A Good Man…What’s in a Name? Kelly Fordon con

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Dec 17, 2012
4 min

Spending a week with a story: You Were Perfectly Fine

In February of 2010, I posted a brief summary and discussion of Dorothy Parker’s classic short story, You Were Perfectly Fine. When I first made the post, I had no idea how popular that blog would be. It’s hard to tell, based on the two comments that follow that post, but that particular blog article is consistently listed as among the most viewed post on my site, based on the WordPress tally of pages visited. Internet readers find their way to my blog on a regular basis by s

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Nov 28, 2012
6 min

A Good Man…We’re All Misfits.

This is the (belated) final installment of the series of guest contributions focused on Flannery O’Connor’s story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. This post comes from a wonderful writer friend who I had the honor to spend two weeks with in a quiet, out-of-the-way place in Wyoming. (See more about our time at the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts in earlier blog posts.) David is a talented, warm, and giving writer. He was at his desk before me, and stayed at the task after me,

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Nov 21, 2012
3 min

A Good Man…Beyond the Names We Know

Naming our characters (or, sometimes, not naming our characters) is a big piece of the literary puzzle for many writers. This is the second essay about the names of characters in A Good Man is Hard to Find. It didn’t surprise me that my fellow writer, Andrea Cumbo, would write about the names in this O’Connor story. I’ve read a draft version of the book Andi is working on (which she mentions briefly at the end of this post) and I know how important nameless-ness is to her. He

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Nov 20, 2012
4 min

A Good Man…Good vs. Evil

I met Kelly Fordon while I was pursuing my MFA. She was working on a novel told from the point of view of a U.S. Congressman’s young daughter. The chapter I read had a cameo by Richard Nixon. I was hooked. Kelly is also a published poet and all-around great person to hang out with. (I also featured a link to one of her stories in a Friendly Friday post a while back…) Good versus Evil in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” <img class="size-medium wp-image-1196 lazyload" title="2607_7

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Nov 18, 2012
1 min

Guest Week: A Good Man is Hard to Find

Over the next few days (with a break for the Thanksgiving holiday, naturally) I’ve asked some of my favorite writer friends to help out by providing their reactions to one of my favorite short stories: Flannery O’Connor’s, A Good Man is Hard to Find. It’s a story that deserves to be read and re-read, and studied thoroughly. It is a story I assign to my fiction writing students and I can’t wait to read the responses to the story from these wonderful writers. I’m pretty sure yo

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Aug 16, 2012
2 min

One Letter Separates “tale” from “stale”

I was writing a brief critique this week, and as I wrote something like, “You’ve done a nice job of telling this tale,” my itchy s-finger slipped in an extra letter so what I typed was, “You’ve done a nice job telling this stale.” It occurred to me that there is a fine line between telling a tale and telling something that is stale. <img class="size-full wp-image-1072 lazyload" title="large__7421877368" src="https://ericswyatt.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/large__7421877368.jpg

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Jun 13, 2012
3 min

Reading as a Writer

New York City. We were watching a movie last night, (Man on a Ledge, not that it matters for the purposes of this blog) and it occurred to me that other than a few places I’ve lived, I’ve probably seen more of New York City than I have of any other place on the earth. Movies and TV shows and documentaries and books and books of photos. Boxes of comics books. Maps and satellite images in the time after 9/11 when I was attempting to understand a bit more of the geography. All t

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Oct 17, 2011
2 min

Repetition and Reading – Tools for Writers

I’m not naturally a person who reads a book multiple times or watches the same movie over and over. There are too many things I haven’t read, too many movies I’ve not yet seen, to spend large amounts of time re-hashing things I’ve already digested. (There are some exceptions, but they are few and far between.) As a substitute teacher, I’ve been in a couple of situations that helped me understand two key concepts for emerging writers. Repetition is Key to Understanding The fir

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Sep 29, 2011
1 min

Structure & Inspiration: Goal is Not a 4-Letter Word

I try to post the Unblocker prompts on Tuesday and Thursday, and post the video blog in the middle, but I wasn’t very good with reading the calendar this week. Today’s episode of The Three Minute Writer is dedicated to thinking about how we structure our writing lives. Check it out: [su_youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68MOl_2hiKM”][youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68MOl_2hiKM] [/su_youtube] If you’ve missed prior episodes of the video blog (or want a quick w

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Jan 31, 2011
2 min

One Week Down, A Lifetime to Go

So, a peak behind the curtain… Last week I blogged that I’ve become more and more convinced that tracking and awareness are key components to the writing life, and I hinted that I’m building this conviction into a sort of philosophy of writing, which is helping me turn out #1 MORE, and #2 BETTER product. Part of this development of philosophy (which is different from developing your actual method or process for writing) led me to informally keep track of my writing and litera

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Eric Sheridan Wyatt

Feb 11, 2010
4 min

You Were Perfectly Fine, by Dorothy Parker

[su_note](Editor’s Note: You can find even more posts about Dorothy Parker’s story, You Were Perfectly Fine, by checking out the Dorothy Parker category tag.)[/su_note] Using the humor of two perspectives works well in this classic story: You Were Perfectly Fine, by Dorothy Parker: Summary The “pale young man” (Peter) and the clear-eyed girl are recovering from a party where the young man was drunk and made quite a spectacle. He’s worried he’s been too over the top, she tries

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