A Journey Through Literary America – Review by Marc Schuster

I’ll start this review by admitting that I’m not the easiest guy in the world to shop for, and I really do feel bad for all of the people in my life who have to buy me gifts whenever my birthday or Christmas rolls around. The problem, if you can call it that, is that I’m just not into things. I am, however, a book lover, but this also raises a number of issues in the gift-giving arena–the biggest of which is that nobody (including myself half the time) knows which books I own or have read, and so nobody knows which books to give me. And, yes, there are always gift cards to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but these gifts, heartfelt and sincere though they may be, smack slightly of defeat. They say, “I wanted to get you something, but I didn’t know what, so I’ll let you figure it out for yourself.”

I say all of this because I’m sure I’m not the only person out there who’s hard to buy for. And I further suspect that all of these people who are, like me, hard to buy for have people who love them and who want to buy them something out of the ordinary whenever gift-giving season rolls around. But they (the people who love the people who are hard to buy for) can never find the right gift and will–at the last moment, when all hope is lost–always settle for giving yet another gift card each holiday season even though they’d much prefer to buy a gift from the heart that say, “Hey! I care about you, and I know you well enough to get you this wonderful gift!” To put it bluntly, I’m saying all of this because I know how hard it is to shop for book lovers. But no more–for A Journey Through Literary America by Thomas R. Hummel and Tamra L. Dempsey is, I daresay, the perfect gift for book lovers.

First, the book is, objectively speaking, aesthetically beautiful. Illustrated with page after glossy page of vibrant photographs, it explores the settings that inspired many of America’s most loved authors–from Washington Irving’s Castkills to Robinson Jeffers’ Big Sur and back to Toni Morrison’s Lorain, Ohio (and many, many other places in between). Yet the book is more than just a collection of pretty (or, more accurately, stunning) pictures. And it’s even more than just an examination of the specific places that had a profound effect on the literary output of certain authors. Rather, it’s a meditation on relationship between place and author, or, even more broadly, upon place and self, place and identity. This is no small feat, for it takes the authors we admire in the abstract and places them squarely in the real world. Seeing their homes, seeing their towns, seeing the streets they walked and the rolling vistas that inspired them makes the 26 authors examined in A Journey all the more real to me, all the more human.

Needless to say, this volume is both a treat and treasure. Informative as it is beautiful, it will make a wonderful addition to any library. And, if you’re looking for the perfect gift for the book lover in your life, look no further than A Journey Through Literary America.

Marc Schuster is the author of The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl and the Associate Fiction Editor of Philadelphia Stories.

 

Push to Publish report by Jerry Waxler

by Jerry Waxler

For weeks I considered dedicating a precious Saturday to attend the “Push to
Publish” conference, hosted by Philadelphia Stories. I enjoyed the event last year
and thought I ought to do it again. Now, I needed to commit the time.

By Saturday morning my preference to meet writers won and I drove into pouring rain,
to find myself back along the winding paths and elegant buildings of the Rosemont
College campus on Philadelphia’s Main Line. The registration room was packed, and
looking around I spotted a likely networking candidate, a young man sitting alone.
“What do you write,” I asked. “A memoir,” he said. Jackpot. The memoir gods were
smiling.

He was an undergrad in the English Department at University of Delaware. “People
think I’m crazy to write a memoir when I’m so young.” I looked at him. “I think
they’re the ones who are crazy. It’s your story. You should tell it any time you
want.” Just then, a woman I knew from another regional writing group leaned in to
interrupt us. “Aren’t you the memoir guy? There’s someone I want you to meet.”

I excused myself from the youngest memoir writer I’ve met, and was introduced to a
woman, perhaps in her 40s, who had written about her family history. She told me a
fascinating tale complete with twists and turns. “I’m finished the draft. Now,
before I spend a lot of time editing it, I came to the conference to see if anyone
believes I’m wasting my time.” I looked at her. Had she really come here searching
for naysayers? “Ouch,” I said. “Why would anyone tell you that? And if they did, why
would you believe them?” She shrugged and I moved on.

Waiting on line for coffee, the woman in front of me turned, smiled, and stuck out a
hand. I clasped it in greeting, but instead of introducing herself, she pointed to
the man next to her. “This is my husband. I talked him into writing a novel.” I
asked her, “How did that work for you?” She said, “It was great” and they both
laughed.

We sat down together to eat our continental breakfast, and I said, “I’m into memoir
writing.” He said, “If I wrote about my life, it would put everyone to sleep.” I
chewed my bagel and tried to imagine an entire life with no dramatic tension.
Finally, I said, “It’s not about spectacular events. It’s about great story
telling.”

He grew quiet. “Well, actually, I have written a couple of stories about myself.” He
went on to describe an incident from his childhood that completely grabbed my
attention, like I was back there with him, and we were in danger together. I said,
“How could anyone fall asleep? That story is enchanting.” (No, I won’t tell it. It’s
his story, not mine.)

On my walk through the rain to hear the keynote speech, I wondered, “Why do so many
people think there’s something wrong with writing their own stories?” The keynote
speaker, Lise Funderburg, didn’t have this problem. She published a memoir about her
relationship with her father. Apparently, one of her goals as a writer is to share
herself.

In fact, most of the talk consisted of tips she had learned about the writing life.
For example, “You have to be okay with rejection. And that doesn’t stop. In fact, it
still hurts me when I’m rejected.”

“Well,” I thought. “That’s a consistent message. Writing is hard work, with long
periods of uncertainty, plenty of pain and for most of us not too much money. So, if
it hurts so bad, why is this room full of people again?”

Funderburg went on to read a passage from her recently published memoir, which I
have not yet had an opportunity to read, called “Pig Candy: Taking My Father South,
Taking My Father Home: A Memoir.” It’s about discovering her relationship with her
father while he was dying of cancer. The passage was rich in imagery, full of
kindness and conveying the same sparkle in her words as danced in her eyes. At the
end, I raised my hand and asked, “How did you find your voice?” She hesitated for a
moment, and said, “Finding my voice was really a very long journey around a big
circle until I finally came back to just being myself.”

Dodging rain drops and puddles on my way to the next section of the conference, I
thought, “Even her voice is an expression of herself. No wonder it hurts to be
rejected. We’re pouring ourselves out to other people. What a crazy thing to do.”

I realized that in addition to learning the art of self-expression, writers must
learn courage. We imagine, we write, we polish, and then we beg gatekeepers for the
opportunity to share our work with readers. But Lisa Funderburg didn’t shrivel back
from the task, and her story provides one more inspiring example of a writer pushing
through obstacles to reach higher goals.

Notes

Visit the Amazon Page for the memoir Pig Candy by Lise Funderburg
Lise Funderburg’s Home Page
Click here for the essay I wrote about last year’s Philadelphia Stories Conference

Cross-posted on Jerry’s blog about reading and writing memoirs, Memory Writers Network.

 

An Anthropological Take on the Underdog by Guest Blogger JK EVANCZUK

David and Goliath–the original underdog?

By JK EVANCZUK

There is something distinctly magical about the idea of the “underdog.” Seemingly present in most–if not all–fiction, the underdog is only too easy to identify with. Who hasn’t felt that the world is against us, our problems are too great, our skills are too inadequate? What ultimately happens to this character becomes tantamount to our own abilities to succeed, or to fail. The need to read on, to learn how the underdog will summon his strength and overcome the seemingly insurmountable odds, consumes us.

As the saying goes, everyone loves an underdog.

But I wonder if this intense bond we tend to form with our beloved underdog stems not from simple empathy, but from some more primeval source. I recently was reading a copy of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Blood Rites, an interesting analysis of the origins of war and ritual sacrifice, which despite its subject matter provided some insight as to why we crave fiction and how, like ritual sacrifice, it might satisfy an unconscious, primitive hunger we all share.

Let me explain: way, way back in the day, and I’m talking men-wearing-loincloths-and-drawing-on-cave-walls-back-in-the-day, humankind lived in fear of the beast. Before primitive technology like arrowheads or what-have-you (forget about more advanced technology that came later, such as the bow and arrow or the gun), we lived in fear of the lion, tiger, bear, wooly mammoth, etc. We were the hunted. The occurrence of people being plucked from their villages and dragged into the lion’s den to become, well, supper was not uncommon. Eventually, we did develop those primitive technologies and shifted our circumstances so that we graduated from being the “hunted” to becoming the “hunter.”

I describe this transition simply, but it was monumental. Even hundreds of thousands of years later, our fear of being the “hunted” lingers even now, like our innate fear of the dark. On at least on a biological level, we still haven’t quite gotten over the fact that we’ve since situated ourselves nicely at the top of the food chain. And because our species remains in a state of perpetual disbelief, we reenact that tremendous transition, over and over and over again. Hence, there are ritual sacrifices. Hence, there is war. We recognize that our species was once weak and then we demonstrate our newfound dominance by shedding blood.

So, wait, how does this relate to fiction again? I wonder–and here I venture into the exciting world of the theory–if fiction serves as another (less bloody) method of reenacting our graduation from “hunted” to “hunter.” More specifically: the underdog serves this purpose. And maybe this would better explain why we just love to see our puny, powerless, and beloved characters–the hunted–transcend their overwhelming circumstances to become the victor. The hunter.

And we do love to see the underdog succeed, over and over and over again. Such as in war and ritual sacrifice, just one reenactment will not do. Even when we know from the outset that the underdog will indeed overcome those impossible odds, we read on anyway because it is not the ending we are interested in. It is the act of transcendence, which so mirrors our own so many years ago, that enraptures us.

Here I can once again thank the horror movie for so baldly demonstrating my point. Think of your standard horror movie fare: a big scary monster chases some poor kids around for 90 minutes. The monster is bigger and stronger and the kids are woefully unmatched to him, but somehow they survive. Maybe I’m speaking too much to my own interests here, but I can’t imagine why anyone would want to willingly submit to being terrified in a dark theater for an hour and a half if not to ultimately experience that thrill when the protagonists miraculously survive.

So, yes, the concept of the underdog works so well in fiction because by nature the underdog inspires conflict, and such a character is infinitely more interesting to read about than one who gets everything he wants with little to no opposition. And yes, it is handy to the writer that the bond forged with the underdog helps pull the reader through the rest of the story. But beyond these more technical aspects, the underdog works so well in fiction because we need it on a primal level. We read on primarily to see the underdog achieve and thereby vicariously experience, once again, the thrill of making that phenomenal step from the “hunted” to the “hunter.”

Cross-posted at Lit Drift

 

Permanent Press picks up The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl

As the first run of The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl (published by PS Books, the books division of Philadelphia Stories) inches closer to selling out, Marc Schuster is pleased to announce that the Permanent Press will be publishing a new edition of the novel in 2011. This edition will be significantly different from the current edition published by PS Books. More details to follow… In the mean time, be sure to get a copy of the original while supplies last!

 

Progress by guest blogger Elizabeth Mosier

by Elizabeth Mosier

 

Author Marketing in a Web 2.0 World by Don Lafferty

Cross-posted on Don Lafferty’s blog

by Don Lafferty on October 21, 2009

My stressful Saturday morning melted into a tremendously positive afternoon after arriving late to Rosemont College for Philadelphia Stories’ one day writer’s conference, Push to Publish 2009: Strategies and Techniques to Get Your Work in Print and Online.

I met a bunch of cool local writers who reminded me again why I continue to bury myself with live events.

I participated in two jam-packed panel discussions, both focused on best practices in selling yourself – something I’m always willing to do at the drop of a hat.

Kelly Simmons moderated MARKETING: SELLING YOURSELF, with Rosemont College’s very own, author, Lynn Rosen; author/publisher/wonder woman, Karen E. Quinones Miller; and debut romance author, Lisa Dale.

For the final panel of the day, I moderated PROMOTING YOUR WORK IN A WEB 2.0 WORLD with the ¢entcible life blogger Kelly Whalen; poet and owner of the Barefoot Muse, Anna Evans; and children’s author, Nancy Viau.

Between the two panels we covered a ton of best practices for authors marketing themselves and their work.  Here are our picks for the top ways and author can market their work in today’s Web 2.0 world.

1. Define your personal brand.

Do you write children’s books, steamy, sexy vampire tales, or political satire?

When agents, publishers and readers search for you on the ‘net, be sure the online presence they find showcases your expertise and clearly demonstrates your alignment with the other authors on that shelf.

Include the unique twist or angle that sets you apart from the pack, but frame it in such a way that your work compliments the other books in your space. A fresh take on a proven concept is easier to sell to most editors than a revolutionary new way of approaching the market.

2. Blog!

HEY! Don’t run away now. Get your head out of…the sand, and face the reality of being an author today. A blog is the number one way to drive social search. If you ignore this critical weapon in your marketing arsenal, you’re tying one hand and one leg behind you back before you even reach the starting line.

There are plenty of authors blogging out there, so browse until you find a style and structure that fits with your comfort level and copy it.

You do not have to blog every day; you simply need to create enough content, so when a potential agent, editor or reader finally takes ten precious seconds of their life to look at you, they get a quick, accurate feel for what you’re all about. If you’ve done your community-building homework, crafted a clear brand, and really understand your target connections, this is where you’ll convert casual interest to brand loyalty a.k.a. revenue, in the form of book deals, book sales, speaking engagements, teaching opportunities, job opportunities and other paying gigs.

3. Join Facebook.

Facebook is crushing MySpace. Facebook’s exploding demographics are growing younger and older, so get on Facebook. As weird as it may feel, authors should create a fan page in addition to their personal Facebook account, even if you don’t publish it right away. Facebook accounts have a limit of 5000 friends, while fan pages allow an unlimited number of fans. You’re shooting for the bestseller list, right?

4. Stalk the authors in your space.

Make a list of the top authors in your space, watch every move they make, and cozy up to them wherever you can. Once you’re there, you’ll find yourself surrounded by your potential readers, colleagues and media.

You can do this online by joining in the conversation at their blog, and connecting in the Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn communities.

One creative, hard-working author (I promised I wouldn’t say who) tucked a postcard into every book by every similar author in every local bookstore, driving his self-published book to sales in excess of 25,000 units inside the first two months of publication. That’s pretty cozy.

5. All signs should point home.

Wrap your online strategy around your home base; your blog/website and building your email list. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and all the other online outposts should point back to your home page where your content will convert a casually interested visitor into a loyal reader.

Offer an incentive to trade for an email address. A free short story, a free how-to e-book or some other form of exclusive or premium content.

6. Know your local booksellers.

More importantly, make sure they know you and your book. When your book hits the shelves, a passionate bookseller can be your best advocate. Create an Indiebound affiliate account and put that link to your book on all your Internet outposts.

When you do a “drive-by book signing” tell everybody in your online community where they can find signed books. Follow up with the bookseller to make sure your signed books are moving.

Blog about them. Thank them on Twitter. Put their pictures up on your Facebook page. Remind everybody you meet every day in every way you can to support their local bookstores, and if you absolutely, positively must use an Amazon link, list it last.

Most publishers require authors to provide links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Powell’s and Books A Million, but they don’t have the bandwidth or the authority to police the manner in which you display the links. I like to use the graphic here, linked out accordingly.

7. Get active in your local writing community.

Writing may be a solitary pursuit, but marketing works better with an army. Push your social beyond your comfort zone. Enlist the help of your local writing community by offering whatever support you can. Pay it forward. It works.

Go to www.meetup.com and you’ll find lots of local writers getting together for lots of different reasons; critique groups, genre-specific discussion groups and general discussion groups. If you don’t find one in your neighborhood, start one.

When you meet other writers, be sure to connect with them on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Engage them publicly on Twitter using the @ reply. Re-tweet their tweets. I know it sounds ridiculous but you’re playing a numbers game and you need more followers to sell more stuff. Engaging publicly in a non-selfish way raises your trust quotient in a social context.

My buddy, Chris Brogan recommends messaging 12 times about other people’s stuff for every 1 message about your own stuff to build your trust.

8. Use free tools to automate your social media work process.

Google Reader, Google Alerts, RSS Feeds and a Twitter application like TweetDeck can be combined to create an automated “listening post” that’ll help you minimize the time suck of social media engagement, and maximize the effectiveness of your social media marketing strategy.

9. Brainstorm your key words and find them.

There are millions of conversations being had out there in social networks every day. Yes, conversations. Status updates, comments on status updates, blog posts, comments on blog posts, comments on the comments, tweets, re-tweets, and more re-tweets.

You can use free search tools to identify your target connections by defining the key words and key word combinations being used by your target connections in the social space, and RSS Feeds to deliver the search results to your Google Reader.

Use your list to create “comprehensive”, “once daily” Google Alerts, and direct them via RSS to your Google Reader.

Go to www.search.twitter.com and search each term and combination in your key word list. Create RSS feeds for these searches and direct them to your Google Reader.

10. Be social! (I’m yelling here)

You can be a recluse, you can be a curmudgeon or you can be an asshole, but those romanticized, stereotypical author personalities won’t succeed in a Web 2.0 environment.

When someone takes the time to leave a comment on your blog, send you a message, or comment on your Facebook wall, pay attention! Respond! Thank them for their time! Answer questions! Make suggestions that add value to your relationship. Give them a reason to come back.

Engage and build brand loyalty.

Never before has it been easier for an author to connect with their public than it is today. All things being equal, the author who engages in Web 2.0 will crush the author who ignores this social space.

Times aren’t changing, they’ve already changed.

What are your best Web 2.0 practices for building platform and connecting with your readers? I’d love to hear them.

Thanks to Christine Weiser, the folks at Philadelphia Stories, my fellow panelists, and everyone who gave their valuable time to stop by and listen.

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Tagged as:
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author marketing,
christine weiser,
Karen E. Quinones Miller,
kelly simmons,
kelly whelan,
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philadelphia stories,
push to publish,
self marketing,
Social Media,
the barefoot muse,
the centcible life,
writing conference

 

Lift: Book Review by Marc Schuster

Rebecca K. O’Connor’s memoir, Lift, offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of falconry, a form of hunting as storied as it is complex. Ostensibly telling the story of her efforts at training a peregrine falcon, O’Connor deftly uses her experience with the bird as a metaphor for overcoming–and, indeed, soaring above–all of the curve balls that life has thrown at her. Her mother, for example, left the family when the author was a young child, her father was always distant, and her unearned reputation for sexual promiscuity led eventually to work as a stripper. None of this, however, causes O’Connor to wallow in self-pity for even a moment. Rather, it serves as the backdrop against which she frames the rest of her life. Her history presents a challenge, but rising to that challenge, like rising to the challenge of gaining the trust of a wild animal, is what ultimately makes O’Connor’s life, not to mention her memoir, so satisfying.

In addition to allowing O’Connor to comment on her own life (and, by extension, the human condition in general), Lift offers the author an opportunity to shed light on the sport of falconry as well. Or perhaps a better phrase would be the art of falconry, for O’Connor’s efforts at bonding with her falcon amount to a curious mix of patience, experimentation, improvisation, and, most of all, patience; that she names her falcon Anakin after Darth Vader’s alter-ego is also a hint that the sport is as much about discipline as it is about the forces that bind the universe together.

While O’Connor’s examination of falconry frequently borders on the mystical, she also has the rare ability to immerse her reader in the romance of a subject without romanticizing it. For this reason, Lift amounts to a fascinating reading not only for anyone interested in the sport but in stories well told and lives well lived.

Reviewer’s Note: Lift and Seducing the Spirits (by Louise Young) make a great paired reading! Birds (of one feather or another) are at the heart of both books, and both explore the rugged terrain of the human heart in loving, compelling detail.

Marc Schuster is the Associate Fiction Editor for Philadelphia Stories and the author of The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl.

 

Seducing the Spirits: Book Review by Marc Schuster

One might not expect a novel about an ornithologist whose job is to sit on a stool and keep an eye on an eagle’s nest for hours on end to be especially exciting. As it turns out, however, one would be wrong. In the first pages of Louise Young’s captivating debut novel, Seducing the Spirits, protagonist Jenny Dunfree finds herself unceremoniously kicked from the bed of her graduate supervisor and thrust into the wilds of Panama–a journey that includes but is not limited to a bumpy ride on a jeep (complete with howler monkeys screaming almost incessantly in the distance) and an even bumpier flight on an airplane piloted by a man with a gold star enameled to his front tooth. Yet as rough as Dunfree’s trip out to the jungle may be, her real journey–a complex one rife with spiritual, emotional, and social peril–has only begun.

In addition to learning that her job is to keep an eye on an eagle’s nest, Dunfree’s only other instructions are not to, in the words of her director, piss off any of the indigenous people who have allowed the ornithologist access to the nest. Needless to say, this is easier said than done. Though she’s fluent in Spanish, Dunfree doesn’t speak the language of the local Kuna people, and she can’t even begin to understand the intricacies of their culture. Adding to Dunfree’s woes is the fact that her apparently WASPish Midwest background renders her particularly unprepared for the relative lack of restraint with which the Kunas live. Indeed, one of the things that makes Seducing the Spirits such an engaging read is that the cultural difference between Dunfree and the Kunas creates a space of genuine give and take, a true sense of negotiation that is largely absent in the modern “civilized” world. For as much as it divides them, the cultural gap between Dunfree and the Kunas also presents an opportunity for learning and (especially for Dunfree) personal growth. Jarred from the relative comfort and certainty of life in civilization, Dunfree begins to discover her true self on the borderland that lies between the known world and the unknown.

Despite its terrestrial setting, Seducing the Spirits has all of the trappings of great science fiction: an “alien” culture, a protagonist who serves as our surrogate, and a firm understanding that we can learn a lot about ourselves by examining people who are, on the surface, so different from us. What’s more, the fact that the novel is set in the here and now only serves to underscore the amount of wonder that is still left in our world–a wonder that’s not only limited to the alien terrain of foreign lands and cultures, but which also exists in the relatively unexplored depths of the human heart. Exploring both alien worlds simultaneously and expertly, Louise Young has produced a novel that is bound to enchant.

Marc Schuster is the Associate Fiction Editor for Philadelphia Stories and the author of The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl.

 

“PS Reads” Series Launches at Chester County Books!

We’re pleased to announce the launch of our latest endeavor — the PS Reads series — in which authors featured in The Best of Philadelphia Stories, Volume II take to the road and read at your favorite bookstore. Here’s a clip of Mitch Sommers reading from his short story, “Bando,” at our inaugural reading at Chester County Bookstore last Thursday. For more clips, feel free to visit the Philadelphia Stories YouTube channel. Or better yet, come out and see us at our next reading: Big Blue Marble on November 22!

 

Michelle Wittle on a Short Story About Nothing?

Some say a story that is devoid of the four basic elements of the short story can’t be considered a story. Also, some say that if a short story doesn’t have one of the four basic plot outlines, it can’t be a short story. I say both arguments are wrong.

Two women are sitting at a park. They are talking about their life. They get up and leave.

I think the above words are a short story.

While it is true, it is certainly short; I feel it honestly be considered a work of fiction.

With some added details about the characters and perhaps what they were discussing, I think this could very well indeed become a sustainable short story. However, others would disagree and say because the story doesn’t follow a traditional story arch; it isn’t a story at all.

However, look at Seinfeld. The TV show was based on the premise it was a show about nothing. I disagree completely with that theory. The show was about a group of characters and how they interacted with each other and the world. What are the four basic plots? Remember, man vs. society, man vs. nature, man vs. God, and man vs. self?  In just the description of the show, there is man vs man and man vs society.

Let’s not forget that TV shows have become an influential part of how writers write. Look at all the chick lit that has been published in the past few years. Would chick lit be as popular if it weren’t for Sex in the Cityand other shows just like it? So is it any wonder why these short stories about nothing continually keep popping up?

In the case of the short story about nothing, if we could spend ten years watching a show about “nothing”, we can read a short story about “nothing.”

I still want to argue the point that a short story that doesn’t have the four basic elements (setting, plot, character, and theme) can’t be considered a short story.

Look again at my story in the beginning of the blog. Are characters in the story? Is there a setting? Is there some resolution? The only thing my story doesn’t have is a conflict. However, if I were to go in and flesh out the dialogue, I bet there will be a conflict. Most likely it would be a conflict of man vs self, but without having the dialogue it is hard to say with certainty the conflict.

I think the four elements of a story and the four basic conflicts are so ingrained in our minds, we can’t help but write them in. If a well developed picture of a person or two people talking is presented, the basic elements will be there.

Can we have a story about nothing? I don’t think it is possible to have a story about nothing. Even if it is just a simple conversation or a person just looking at a chair, thoughts are happening. Something is happening. In that something, a conflict will come along and a conclusion will surface. How many conversations have you had with people about nothing, yet you still came away from that conversation with something?

It is human nature to want to give things meaning. We have to find the connections. As writers, we connect things all the time. Sometimes it happens so naturally, we don’t know we did the connections until someone else reads our piece and points it out.

In conclusion, every story, either spoken or written, is about something. Therefore, there is no such thing as a story about nothing.