Reading Response to Ariel Cartwright's "The Machine of Wonders"

  You do a very good job of getting into the mindset of a child. I love all the imagery that comes with that as well. Like describing the nurse as a rubber duck, and the only scene with the cigarette machine was great. Also just the air of the mood was just on point. You do a good job of setting a very emotion and intense scene set in the eyes of a child. And I thought that whenever your tenison scene would come up, it wouldn't work that well because it is from the eyes of the child but it did work and it was great.
  One thing I would change is I want the child, when she leaves, to wander around much more. I know she is just walking down the hall but that is what children do. I feel like having her wander past different rooms and see different patients and having her thinking about that. Also I want her to walk into the room seeing her mom. I know that is really morbid but I would be very intense and emotional and you can play around with how she interprets what she sees.

Reading Response to Dan Yurcaba's "Red Checkered Suit"

  Wow, I was not expecting that to end. All throughout the story I was curious where this was going. I get that the man was a little creepy and and had probably "Made sure she made it home ok" before but man this was intense. When she hit her head in the market, the tension rose immensely. Also you do a very good job of establishing how close these characters are, Paul and Cheryl. The line "She did not notice and he noticed she did not notice." was to intense. Also you do a good job of describing things. You use a lot of adjectives in places but they aren't complex words, they're more or less simple. And that works well for your story.
  One thing I wish was different is that up until we know that the speakers name is Paul, you keep referring to him as the man in the red checkered suit. I get that this is the title and it holds a very significant meaning to the story but I gets overused and losing its meaning. Another thing is I'd really like to know more about this man, Paul. How old is he? How often does he follow Cheryl home? Is this an obession with him? There are a lot of unanswered questions about him that I's like to know. And you could even start the story with a paragraph of Paul almost getting caught or something from his childhood involving his parents.

Reading Response to Timothy Collier's "The Passing Days Only Brighten"

  You do an amazing job of describing this town that is Rhodesia, Alabama. The way you describe the contents of the town, the people and their reactions to everything, and also the weather, all of it reminded me when I lived in a very small Alabama town. Another part I really enjoyed was on page four in the assembly when the speaker is hearing all the people talking. It seemed really realistic to me because you have Butch just getting snippets and tail ends of conversation. Some of it made sense, some of it didn't so that is working well for the story.
  One thing I was left curious about was the character Carver. I get that the whole story is based around this man dying and we learn a whole lot about him through people talking about him in the assembly and what not but I want to know what Butch thinks of him. When he goes back to his house I like that you have the character conflicting back and forth between the campaign and this man but it just seems unnatural to me because it isn't clear of what kind of relationship these two men had, Carver and Butch. Also you throw in this letter and Butch is so distraught by this his senses are blurred. What is going on here? Why is he so upset? And just as I start thinking about these questions we and in a different part of the room. The ending seems to fast paced and leaves too many unanswered questions.

Reading Response to Emma Hyche's "Pulaski County"

  First off wow. This was an amazing story. For the very beginning you no one captured my attention but you kept it entertained the entire way through. I love the speaker. You have the suspicious sense of not knowing whether or not she actually cares about her kids or if she is just too tired. You constantly feel bad for her but as soon as you get into that mind set she does something that throws you away from that. Also I think the first person perspective works great for this story. Also you do a great job of describing the setting. "I'd trace my fingers over the black and white sand and shiver as the wind whistled in through the cracks in the floorboard."
  One thing I want to see more of is this connection with the grandmother, the speakers grandmother. There are two paragraphs at that end of page four and beginning of page five where we learn a little of the history between the grandmother and the speaker but not much else. If she is this prominent figure in her life bring that out more. I don't think it would take away from the feel of the story. And I feel you can bring this out just before the police officer shows up. Have her be deep in sleep and wanting to be back in that moment either with her grandmother or Jeremy and talk about both good and bad moments.

Reading Response to Carrie Mullenholz "Normalcy"

  So I like the idea with where this is going. You have a college girl who is very close to her mother, as stated in the opening paragraph, and is ultimately betrayed when she finds out that her mother has been cheating on her father and sudden the shift of loving her mother more goes to the father.
  You have a very good setup for your speaker. Mainly that initial paragraph dealing with the flowers. Your speaker just seems so fleshed out and so natural when she talks to people and when she experiences grief. Another good thing is your descriptive use. You give good details on the setting, even though most of it is subtle, which isn't a bad thing. The part in particular was when so was running back to the house and she trips. You have this fast paced moment where the speaker in distress and doesn't necessarily know what is going on around her but you manage to make it believable in the things she does comment on. I feel a lot of writers miss that.
  Places where I can see you to improve is dealing with the father. We don't really know that much about him and he really doesn't take hold of his character until the speaker goes back to college and she calls him every night. Another thing is the last conversation we get between the speaker and the father in the summer on page 5, it seems to...ehh...I want more out of the conversation. I want to see her react to this information about a woman she has trusted so much just devastate her to the point of being broken down. I understand his reaction to the recent actions of his wife but this is all new to the speaker. Lastly I feel that the ending could be changed. Everything seems to be summed up, not all nicely but enough to make the reader happy. I feel like the ending we have can work but it need to be another page longer. Have a bigger argument between them. Make us see how much the mother hurt her daughter and how much the daughter is hurt.

Reading Response to Kiki Young's "The Sibling Savior"

  So I like where this story was going. There is set up for a very interesting controversial story especially with the idea that the baby would be donor match for the speaker and save her life. You have so much information and set up to make a heart clenching story but it falls short in the end. It feels like you just wrapped up the story in that last paragraph because you didn't know where to go with it. Also you give all this information earlier in the story of medical information put you don't explain how the bone marrow transfer from a baby would work.

  With talking about the medical information. You present it in such a formal manner that it feel unnatural. You have a doctor explaining very complicated information to a 17 year old girl who is scared. That was my main complaint with the story. We are given all these characters like the speaker and David and we don't have any real reason to care about them. Yes it is nice that David is helping her sister and it is bad that the speaker as cancer but I feel like the cancer is forcing the reader to care. We don't have a natural reason to want to care that the speaker will get better. Mainly because we already know. 

Creative Writing Event 2

  The second event I went to was one of the local art museum's "Third Thursday" events. It was a special one because it was the Jake Adam York Tribute Reading. I had never heard of this man before but noticing that we moved to a bigger room and had three times as many chairs out I figured that he was very important. When the event started I found out who Jake was and the impact he had on the Auburn poet community. What he wrote the most about was martyrs and supports, their story, of the civil rights movement. I can't think of the new of the type of poetry at the moment.
  The night had four speakers, each one was a close friend to Jake. The first was his publisher. He talked about his experience with Jake and how he sent him a copy of his last book only a short time period before his death. He then proceed to read a few of his poem. The next person who went on was another older man. His readings of the Jake poems is what really set me apart that night. He read a poem, a long one, and it was about this very detailed account of a woman experiencing her life pre and during the civil rights movement. And believe me Dr. Spell when I say that it made me teary eyed. (Not just a single glistening tear, sorry I couldn't resist)
  After that night, it kind of gave me a jumpstart to start writing creatively again and not just in my poetry but also in my fiction. This inspired me to really dive into my second story and helped me write it from my mother's perspective. It also solidified that I need to write about things other than myself and my emotions, but to try and write about others and other things.

Reading Response to Za'Tasja Baker's "A Racist Cry"

  So when first reading the title, I was very interested in what the story was going to be about, and I did enjoy the story. I think, to me, what set the story to work were was the integration of the poem and the reaction we got from the teacher and the speaker. The idea of this story is a very good one. You have a set up for readers to see a change in perception, not necessarily for the characters in the story but the reader themselves.

  And while I think this is a great idea and I can see it happening the story falls short in a few aspects and in turn it takes away from what the story can do and tell. The biggest thing to me was the initial complaint that the speaker has with Jimmy. I feel that if you had let him continue his racist remarks, and maybe even have a them go into more detail, and let the teacher make a fool of himself it outlast would be much more better. I can't really argue for me being a privileged white individual, but I understand the meaning you meant by his comments and how they were racist but I feel it was just too short of a discussion on his part.

  Another the that I was confused by was where this taking place. You describe the past setting but nothing about the classroom and nothing about the main characters. You give a lot on emphasis on the discussion of the characters but nothing really about where they are or who they are.

Response to Olivia Baugh's "Nightmare"

  Ok so going into this story I was a little curious as to what was going to happen. It intrigued me to the point where I wanted to finish the story. Also I was very nervous when you threw in the Harry Potter lingo because I thought, oh boy this made the story just drop all tension it had going for it. However, I had forgotten about this disorder you threw in with the character so when it came to and Damian was back in reality, the tension heighten so much more I was all into this story . It was such an indirect way of going about it.
  But let that lead me into my next point. I think that it is too much of an indirect way that it takes for the story. Also you don't explain at all what the disorder is other than it causes Damian to have episodes. I feel if you went into a little explanation of what it was or briefly describe a previous episode. I know that might not make the story have that same surprise but without some explanation, to me it just leaves to story lacking.
  Another key thing to look at is that scattered all throughout the story you go into a lot of over detail, and you repeat the same thing. Not as in the same words but you will describe something in detail then you would reiterate what you just said in the next sentence with three or four words. Also the "Dum's" to me aren't working. I see what you are going for and in this context it just adds more than what is needed to the story.

Reading Response to Jhumpa Lahiri's "Once in a Lifetime"

  You told us in class that this was a very hyper realism story and for some reason I thought it was going to be a lot different than what it was. I loved, however, what it actually was. The story was interesting. Lahiri had this really interesting way of voicing the story. It seemed as though she was recollecting everything that she had experienced as a juvenile thirteen year old girl to her friend from a much older age. The way she dies this is by referring to him as you and those things associated to him as yours.
  I kept getting angry at this mother of Hema's. I don't know how traditionally one is to pay respect to guests in their culture but everything her mother did just seemed to infuriate me. I get that she is thirteen and the other family helped them out a lot when Hema was first born but still, everything that her mother did was mainly to just impress her friend and her family. It almost seemed like jealously.
  In relation to the essay you also made us read for today, I was curious why you made us read this as well. There is a few lines on the second to last page that goes against everything you said about tears and how they don't need to be in stories. However, I then thought that this is the speaker getting us into the mind of this thirteen year old girl and I realized that that is how a thirteen year old would say that. What solidified it was what came next and it was our speaker saying she was crying because of being so close to a dead women and that she stayed in her house, etc. The whole story was told this way. The speaker would change voice as time progressed and done in the hyper realism way of writing, it makes the story seem more natural.

Reading Response to Jennifer Davis's "No Tears for Me, Please"

  What is interesting to me about this essay is that I was just talking about this, this morning. About how we can't use certain words in both our language or on the page. And it isn't even the fact that it is so much a cliche, but merely the fact the word tear has lost all connotation with what is it can emotionally mean. I has become a dried up word, like a fruit left out in the sun. I do like the mini conversation that Davis gives between her and her student. I feel like she was trying to tell that student that it isn't the fact the Shakespeare is timeless, the word tear isn't. Five centuries, the word tear wasn't used in every single romantic, teenage, fanfiction piece of fiction, film, or conversation. The word tear could be said to readers and listeners and give them the emotion it is trying to provoke.
  These days we can't do that, we as writers have to come up with clever ways to say things that provoke emotion and meaning. I know many times I fall into that trap that is cliche and I have used the "tear streamed down her face and began for form puddles of salty pool on her pants" in some form or fashion more than I'd like to admit, but at the time it was mainly because I was lazy and didn't want to be clever. In today's writing world people have to learn that the words they think hold some emotional power just don't anymore and tear is one of them.