I’ve been super enthralled with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie this CBR, and I thought I needed to read her collection of short stories to make the reading experience complete. As it turns out, there’s a speech/essay published called “We Should All be Feminists,” so I’ll read that too. But I do feel glad for reading her short story collection, as I have more teaching ideas for the next year and beyond. The Thing Around Your Neck focuses on many of the same themes, ideas, or settings […]
When I ask “Krik?” you answer “Krak!”
I’ve been in the process of reading short story collections to piece together some units for my fall course. I’ve got another collection in the wings, because diversity of texts and ideas is always a great thing. I did not expect to fall so deeply in love with Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak! that I would consider bumping one of my texts to make room for this. And yet here we are. In Haitian tradition, when someone asks “Krik?” you respond, “Krak!” It’s an invocation to […]
Let yourself be triggered.
Well, it’s a first for me to give anything Neil Gaiman has written less than four stars, but I’m reminding myself that according to Goodreads’ rating system, that means “I liked it.” And I did! Some of the stories were delightful and magical, and terrifying. But some of them didn’t really work for me, for one reason or another, and overall, it was actually harder to pay attention to the stories, or work up enough energy to dive back into the book, knowing I’d have […]
Frogs, Ducks, Turtles, Rabbits, and How Things Got the Way They Are
Spark – A Creative Anthology, Edited by Brian Lewis (2015) – I usually make it a rule not to critique an anthology that contains a story I’ve written, but this collection of short stories is so good, I couldn’t resist. I won’t mention the story I wrote (except perhaps to say how much I appreciate being included with these tales) or the poetry (which is a foreign language to me). I will, however, list the stories and tell you a little about them. The Frog […]