Book Reviews, Memoir

The Stories We Tell | An analysis of Mary Gordon’s “The Shadow Man: A Daughter’s Search for her Father”

Pieter Claeszoon - Still Life with a Skull and...
Pieter Claeszoon – Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This semester, I am taking a graduate-level course in women’s life writing, partially in an attempt to generate interesting and intellectual content for my blog. Throughout this course, we will be writing “course autobiographies” on some of the texts we are reading. The following is my analysis of Mary Gordon’s The Shadow Man: A Daughter’s Search for her Father.

The stories we tell

The Shadow Man: A Daughter’s Search for her Father is the story of a woman who has based her life on the testimony of unreliable witnesses. Her entire sense of self is disrupted when she realizes that many of the stories she has lived by are not true. While this is not the type of text I would normally choose to read for fun, I do believe it holds value as a teaching tool. In addition to telling the story of Mary Gordon’s search for her father, this text also sets an example of how all humans construct stories about who they are. Continue reading “The Stories We Tell | An analysis of Mary Gordon’s “The Shadow Man: A Daughter’s Search for her Father”” →

Blogging, Book Reviews, Memoir, Women in the World

Read with me: Spring 2015 reading list

Two of the books on my reading list
I just barely managed to get these two books purchased in time to get my reading done for class this week. I’m planning to get the rest of my books from the library as I need them. Seriously, who can afford to actually buy books?

This semester, I am taking a graduate-level course in women’s life writing in an attempt to generate blog post ideas. I’ve found that I write more when I’m taking classes, so my plan is to just continually take classes for the rest of my life whether I need any more degrees or not. It’s lucky I recently landed a full-time civil servant position at a state university where one of the benefits is free tuition!

It’s also too bad you can’t eat tuition, but that’s another blog post entirely.

Since I’ll probably end up discussing some of the books we’re reading for class this semester, I thought I’d share my reading list with you in case you would like to read along: Continue reading “Read with me: Spring 2015 reading list” →

Essays, Health and Fitness, Memoir, Oddities

No matter how weird you are, you are never alone

English: JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (Feb. 2, 2011) Lt....
Luckily, I didn’t need to call an entomologist to solve my problem. | English: JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (Feb. 2, 2011) Lt. Tracy Mejeomov, an entomologist at the Navy Entomology Center of Excellence at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, examines a sample of bed bugs under a microscope to identify the species. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Gary Granger Jr./Released) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Recently, I started finding what appeared to be tiny apple seeds in my bed. At first, I thought someone was eating in my bed. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that I had discovered crumbs all over my sheets from what I can only assume was my teenager discovering – and helping himself to – the  tasty, dark chocolaty, sea salt and caramel pretzel treats that I had stashed away in my desk drawer so I could keep them all to myself. However, when I continued to find these seeds, I knew I couldn’t continue to assume that my teenager was coming home from school every day and eating an afternoon snack in my bed.

Because that would just be too weird.

With no obvious explanation to be found, my fertile imagination immediately set to work trying to figure it out. As I worked myself up, imagining everything from mice eating in my bed (I did recently kill a mouse in my living room with a broom after watching my cats chase it for several minutes and then not know what to do with it once they’d caught it) to some disgusting disease or parasite that causes cats and/or people to excrete something that looks like tiny seeds from their bodily openings, I finally turned to the all-knowing oracle, Google.

At first, Google scared the crap out of me, as it is wont to do. The first link I opened landed me on this conversation led by someone who was having the exact same problem that I was having. After reading her discussion post, which begins with the words, “I think we have bed bugs,” my stomach clenched, and my whole body went clammy.

“Oh, my Google gods, I didn’t even think of bed bugs!” Continue reading “No matter how weird you are, you are never alone” →

Memoir

I write what I read

let's pretend this never happened by jenny lawson
This is me taking a break from reading at the beach.

Do you ever find yourself urged to write in the same genre you happen to be reading at the moment? I got the idea for my current WIP while reading a fantasy novel. Since then, I have been on a quest to devour every novel I can find that is even remotely related to what I am writing in an effort to keep the writing pump primed.

If I stray too far beyond the sphere of what I am writing, it throws me off. For example, if I take a break to read some poetry, I find myself writing poetry instead of novel scenes. Now that I’m reading a memoir, guess what? I’ve decided to write a memoir.

The Bloggess, otherwise known as Jenny Lawson, writes one of the funniest blogs I have ever read in my entire life. I can always count on her to make me laugh out loud, literally, when I’m feeling my worst. For example, this post here. I didn’t just LOL. I totally snorted. Read it, I dare you. Continue reading “I write what I read” →