"Write about what you know" is a familiar mantra in fiction workshops, but writing facts or details about what is known doesn't necessarily create character or reveal conflict. The story must develop from the alchemy of these elements and stand as a whole, and the story must pull the reader into its own particular world.
"The Nature of Grief" and other stories center around one character named Loren Shay and her experiences as a first-time teacher in the small rural town of Folkston, Georgia. With the exception of "Free," these stories represent her conflicts with students and faculty and her struggle to know herself through her experiences. She does not always succeed, but the mystery of her life changes and grows with her identity.
I tried to experiment with style and structure in these stories. "The Nature of Grief," "Adultrysts," and "In The Blackout" are written in episodic scenes pieced together to form a whole. For inspiration and guidance, I studied Lorrie Moore's stories from __Self-Help__and Susan Minot's __Lust__. "10-30," "Quonda B.," amd "Free" are more conventional, following traditional lines of conflict and resolution. My main goal in writing this thesis was to inhabit the fictional voice and create a rich, dimensional world of how one woman dealt with her triumphs and losses during her first year as a teacher.
indicates that a file or directory is accessible from the campus network only.