DOCSLIB.ORG

AY1718 CRWR Newsletter-Final (Jas).Pub

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
AY1718 CRWR Newsletter-Final (Jas).Pub SPRINGSPRING 2015 2018 New Ficon Faculty Interview with Karen Thompson Walker by Marcie Alexander, MFA Ficon ‘19 Karen Thompson Walker joined the pro- Marcie Alexander (MA): Your new novel, gram’s faculty in the 2017 academic year as a The Dreamers, comes out early next year. new Assistant Professor of ficon. Walker’s What's the premise? first novel, The Age of Miracles, was named Karen Thompson Walker (KTW): It’s about one of the best books of the year by People; a contagious sleeping sickness that spreads O, The Oprah Magazine; The Financial Times; through a small college town. People fall Kirkus; Publishers Weekly; Amazon; and Barnes asleep, and they can’t wake up. Eventually, it & Noble. It has been translated into 27 becomes clear that this strange perpetual languages and oponed for film by River Road sleep is accompanied by extraordinary Entertainment. Walker’s wring has also dreams. appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New MA: What led you to the idea? York Times, and Real Simple, and she gave a I've always been TED talk about fear and the imaginaon at interested in contagion TEDGlobal 2012. Karen previously worked as a stories. (Blindness, by book editor at Simon & Schuster and is a José Saramago, which graduate of UCLA and Columbia. Her new imagines an epidemic novel, The Dreamers, is set for release in Walker January 2019. • • • — Cont’d page 2 crwr.uoregon.edu Literary Reference CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM 1 Literary Walker (connued from page 1) of blindness, is one of my favorite books and a major influence.) At the me that I Reference started wring this book, I was living in Iowa City. Living in a college town reminded _______________________ me of some of the weirdness of college, and of the narrave possibilies of the crowded environment of a dorm floor, which is where The Dreamers begins. The FACULTY idea that it would be a sleeping sickness came a lile later—and actually came partly from a dream, as convenient as that may sound. I had a dream that I couldn’t Poetry wake up. I like wring about the uncanny elements of ordinary life, and sleep and dreaming are such clear examples. Garre Hongo MA: So it just fit right into what you were already working on. Daniel Anderson KTW: Right. It was returning to territory that I was interested in and wrote Geri Doran about in The Age of Miracles, which is the collision of ordinary life and ordinary people with some kind of extreme and strange disaster situaon, to see how it Ficon affects them, or how it does or does not change them. MA: How was the process of approaching and wring your second novel Jason Brown different for you than going in to your first? Marjorie Celona KTW: I think I was able to foresee problems a lile more successfully. And just Karen Thompson Walker the feeling of having wrien one novel before made me a lile more calm and a lile more confident, which are feelings that were totally absent when wring my Career Instructor first book. I didn't even know if I could do it. Can I even write 250 pages about the Cai Emmons same characters and world and situaon? Can this story even be something that Brian Trapp anyone would think to call a novel? Wring the second novel felt more like, I know I can write a novel, but is it going to be a good novel? Every novel has its own Instructors challenges, of course, and I’m always learning. Ulrick Casimir MA: Your first novel got a lot of posive crical recepon and acclaim—you Michael Copperman had TED talks, arcles in The Wall Street Journal, all these reviews and all these Miriam Gershow interviews, and I can imagine that felt both amazing and also kind of overwhelming. Tia North Do you feel like it affected your approach, or gave you any sort of hesitaon toward Jacob Powers your next novel at all? Or was it more like, great, that worked out, and so now I'm _______________________ just going to go do that again? KTW: [laughs] No, I wouldn't describe it that way. I had a very strange and ADMINISTRATIVE lucky experience that the book got a certain amount of aenon. It was great, but for a writer, it was weird. I remember feeling that I was much more producve, and P. Lowell Bowditch more comfortable wring and in my wring head once me had passed. That first Program Director year or so, the reviews were in my head—even Amazon reviews, or even things people had said at readings, about things they didn't think worked. Or things that Julia A. Schewanick did, and I thought, well this me I'm doing the opposite.… It was just distracng, for Business Manager a while. That was 2012. I spent about four and a half, five years wring the new _______________________ book. And the further I got from that crazy me, the easier it was to work. MA: Your previous book was narrated by a first person narrator, looking Creave Wring Program back on her life to the me when she was 12. Does The Dreamers have a similar 5243 University of Oregon narrave situaon? Eugene, OR 97403-5243 KTW: No, it’s in third person. It has a large cast of characters, and the narrave T: (541) 346-3944 voice dips into various people’s heads in different parts of the story. F: (541) 346-0537 MA: In choosing that, what was your reasoning behind, this is how I can best E: [email protected] tell this parcular story, versus the perspecve of your previous book, of an hp://crwr.uoregon.edu individual looking back on her experience? Walker — Cont’d page 14 2 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Spring 2018 Art and the Ekphrasc Tradion Interview with Ma Donovan by Kae Haemmerle, MFA Poetry ‘18 Ma Donovan is the finding ways to conjure it but not exhaust it. I don't know author of the collecon of if you’ve been to the Pantheon, but for me there's no essays, A Cloud of Unusual substute for standing in that space. Photographs are Size and Shape: Meditaons going to fail and certainly language as a medium is going on Ruin and Redempon, as to fail. But what I can do is ask quesons. Why am I so well as two collecons of haunted by and obsessed with this space? What am I poetry – Vellum and trying to get at? What is it about the light, that small Rapture & the Big Bam. window of sky, that is haunng me? Then at the same me you have to confront that seemingly impossible task • • • of trying to recreate an aspect of that, trying to focus on Kae Haemmerle (KH): The subjects of your poems so the minua and find a way to draw the reader's aenon oen are rooted in artwork and music. How have those to a parcular detail that you otherwise might not have subjects come to inform your poetry and interest in the appreciated as a viewer. Those are the moments for me ekphrasc tradion? where it’s actual invesgaon on my part. The course of Ma Donovan (MD): I've always been excited about the wring process is a meditaon where I'm just forced art and the ekphrasc tradion. Learning about a piece of to look at it and look at it and look at it. This is something art in the process of finding the poem is to find forms that that I feel poetry can and should do, in addion to change one's relaonship to that art and serve as an innumerable other things: teach us about the act of interrogaon of the piece, or expansion of that piece— looking and the world of art. something that can rupture the stasis of visual art and KH: The "I" speaker you deploy in Vellum is an work through narrave or ask quesons about it as a observer, a quesoner, a meditator. Was this a result of means of engagement. The poem is in part asking working in the ekphrasc tradion? Have you perhaps quesons about it, sing with it, trying to get to that changed your approach to the speaker with your more moment of the aesthec experience and then also recent collecon, Rapture & the Big Bam? pushing beyond that, which poetry affords as a narrave MD: When I look back at the poems in Vellum, which form or form that can include narrave. Oen for me, a at this point were wrien a while ago, it’s something that source of a poem might be having some sort of response I was cricized for when I was in grad school, that I didn't to a piece of music or an arst or a painng or sculpture have enough of myself in the poems. At the me, I really and just wanng to understand it and go through that act resisted the need to have the personal in there. Maybe of looking. Inevitably for me, even the act of wring the some of that was coming out of a resistance to the poem, whether it ends up being a failed poem or a piece confessional tradion, and I didn't feel like poems needed that I feel is finally seled or dislled, will have opened up to do that. But when I look back at them, I feel like those that work of art from the course of trying to approach it, poems can risk holding their cards too close, making it understand it, interrogate it.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 2017 CRWR Newsletter
    SPRINGSPRING 2015 2015 Interview with Visiting Assistant Professor Sara Jaffe by Sam Axelrod, MFA FicƟon ‘18 Sara Jaffe joined the program’s faculty for the 2016 academic year as a visiting profes- sor of fiction. Her first novel, Dryland, was published by Tin House Books in Septem- ber 2015. Her short fiction and criticism have appeared in Fence, BOMB, NOON, Paul Revere’s Horse, matchbook, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Drawing on her experience as guitarist for post-punk band Erase Errata, she also co-edited The Art of Touring (Yeti, 2009), an anthology of writ- Sara Jaffe (SJ): So, to speak first about ing and visual art by musicians. the publishing experience, and the recep- Sara holds a BA from Wesleyan tion of having a book out in the world—I University and an MFA from the Universi- think it certainly felt very vulnerable at ty of Massachusetts Amherst, and has re- first to open myself up to readers I don’t ceived fellowships from the Virginia Cen- know, and to being reviewed and stuff, ter for the Creative Arts, RADAR Produc- but I think almost across the board when I tions, and the Regional Arts and Culture received unfavorable reviews, it seemed Council. She is also a co-founding editor of pretty clear to me that they were not my New Herring Press, a publisher of prose readers. That what they felt I had failed to chapbooks. do was not something I was trying to do anyway. So that was reassuring in a way, — — — — — — and sort of helped to clarify my intent.
    [Show full text]
  • Book Group to Go Book Group Kit Collection Glendale Public Library
    Book Group To Go Book Group Kit Collection Glendale Public Library Titles in the Collection—Spring 2015 Book Group Kits can be checked out for 8 weeks and cannot be placed on hold or renewed. To reserve a kit, please contact: [email protected] or call 818.548.2041 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie In his first book for young adults, bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, the book chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy. Poignant drawings by acclaimed artist Ellen Forney reflect Junior’s art. 2007 National Book Award winner. Fiction. Young Adult. 229 pages The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta A controversy on the soccer field pushes Ruth Ramsey, the human sexuality teacher at the local high school, and Tim Mason, a member of an evangelical Christian church that doesn't approve of Ruth's style of teaching, to actually talk to each other. Adversaries in a small-town culture war, they are forced to take each other at something other than face value. Fiction. 358 pages The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow.
    [Show full text]
  • Grade 11 Diverse Book Collections with Annotations
    Grade 11 Diverse Book Collections with Annotations Title Author Summary Awards & Honors Becoming Kareem : Growing Up Abdul-jabbar, K Presents the memoir of legendary basketball player Compendium Winter 2018 On And Off The Court Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as he reflects on his New York Times Bestseller childhood, career, conversion, and social reform. Texas Topaz Nonfiction Reading List 2019 Garden State Teen Nonfiction Award Poet X Acevedo, E Xiomara Batista is a teenage girl living in Harlem Compendium Spring 2018 who's learned to use her fists to send messages. National Book Award for Young People's When she's invited to join her school's poetry club, Literature she knows her religious mother will never allow it. Michael L. Printz Award But Xiomara is determined to find a way. Pura Belpre Award Carnegie Medal NC YA Award HS Nominee DE Blue Hen Teen Reader Nominee Texas Tayshas HS Reading List 2019-2020 SLJ Best Books 2018 ALA Honor 2019 Chicago Public Library Best Teen Titles Just One More Page! Reading List 2019 ALA Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant YA YALSA Amazing Audiobooks for YA 2019 Michigan Thumbs Up! Award Nominee 2019 Amelia Bloomer Project GA Peach Teen Choice Award CCBC Book 2019 PA Young Reader's Choice Award YA 2019-2020 Illinois Abraham Lincoln Award FL Teens Read Award Nominee The Walter Award The Odyssey Award (more individual state awards not noted due to space restriction) With The Fire On High Acevedo, E Bi-racial high school senior Emoni Santiago balances Compendium Title school with her job and raising her two-year-old daughter in Philadelphia.
    [Show full text]
  • L Iterary R Eferen Ce
    SPRINGSPRING 2015 2015 Program Welcomes New Fiction Faculty Interview with Marjorie Celona by Allison Donohue, 1st-year poetry MFA n Fall 2015, the Creative Writing Pro- gram welcomed Marjorie Celona as a member of the fiction faculty. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Work- Ishop, Marjorie’s debut novel Y was pub- lished in 2013. The Program featured Mar- jorie as the first reader in the annual read- ing series. ~ Allison Donohue: First off, as the most recent addition to the MFA faculty as Assistant Professor of Fiction, Wel- come! This past fall you read from your debut novel, Y. The novel begins with the lines, “My life begins at the Y. I am born and left in front of the glass doors, and even though the sign is flipped ‘Closed,’ a man is waiting in the parking lot and he Maritime island maybe—and had to cross sees it all: my mother, a woman in navy a treacherous channel on a small ferry in coveralls, emerges from behind Christ the middle of winter in a rattletrap car, his Church Cathedral with a bundle wrapped mother practically bursting. The conceit— in gray, her body bent in the cold wet that “impossible” omniscient voice—isn’t wind of the summer morning.” any different from what Truman Capote The first chapter continues as the did in In Cold Blood, or what countless oth- speaker tells the story of her own birth. er omniscient first-person narrators in fic- How did you decide to begin your novel with such an interesting and arresting tion have done, ex- point of view? cept that in this case the writer was telling Marjorie Celona: Years ago, I attended a the story of his own reading in which the writer told the true birth.
    [Show full text]
  • The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker ______
    The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker __________________________________________________________________________________________ About the author: Karen Thompson Walker was born and raised in San Diego, California, where The Age of Miracles is set. She studied English and creative writing at UCLA, where she wrote for the UCLA Daily Bruin. After college, she worked as a newspaper reporter in the San Diego area before moving to New York City to attend the Columbia University MFA program. A former book editor at Simon & Schuster, she wrote The Age of Miracles in the mornings before work—sometimes while riding the subway. She is the recipient of the 2011 Sirenland Fellowship as well as a Bomb Magazine fiction prize. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband. Source: Author’s website (http://www.theageofmiraclesbook.com/) About this book: “It still amazes me how little we really knew. Maybe everything that happened to me and my family had nothing at all to do with the slowing. It’s possible, I guess. But I doubt it. I doubt it very much.” On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life—the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behavior of her grandfather who, April 2016 convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his days obsessively cataloging his possessions.
    [Show full text]
  • EMBLEY-DISSERTATION-2019.Pdf
    “Do Not Get Me Wrong—I Love American Culture, too”: A Postcolonial Narrative Inquiry Into the Identity Shaping of Filipino American Adolescents Using Literary Texts About Filipino Immigrants by Charity Gamboa Embley, M.Ed. A Dissertation In Curriculum and Instruction Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved Jeong-Hee Kim, Ph.D. Chair of Committee Mellinee Lesley, Ph.D. Rene Saldana, Ph.D. Mark Sheridan, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School May 2019 Copyright 2019, Charity Gamboa Embley Texas Tech University, Charity Gamboa Embley, May 2019 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work would not have been possible without the support of my best friends (Rena Gordon, Debbie Torres, Karishma Bisht), who always supported me in my endeavors. I also want to acknowledge my Texas Tech “buddies” whom I have shared my joys and frustrations during my Ph.D. journey. I am especially grateful to Dr. Sonya Sherrod from the Texas Tech College of Education Doctoral Support Center for her patience and kindness all throughout my dissertation-writing phase. I am also extremely grateful to my supervising faculty, Dr. Phoebe Okungu and Dr. Nora Griffin-Shirley from the Virginia Murray Sowell Center for Research and Education in Sensory Disabilities, and Dr. Angela Lumpkin, my mentor, who all have been supportive of my career goals and provided me with the protected academic time to pursue these goals. Each of the members of my Dissertation Committee has provided me extensive personal and professional guidance and taught me a great deal about both research and life in general.
    [Show full text]
  • (Book Recommendation) Mia Alvar's in the Country For
    Book Recommendation Mia Alvar’s In the Country for Filipino Readers (and Philippine Short Stories for Americans) Gerald T. Burns Franklin Pierce University In the Country, a debut volume of stories by Manila-born, New York-based author Mia Alvar, made quite a splash when it came out in the US in 2015. Reviewers gave the collection, dealing with aspects of Philippine life both in diaspora and at home, glowing endorsement. In some cases the tribute went beyond the accents of praise commonly accorded new entries in the book trade. Maureen Corrigan reported to National Public Radio listeners on a “gorgeous writing style…an imagination [that] seems inexhaustible,” declaring, “as a reader and a new fan, I want more and more and more” (par. 2, 8). Jessica Woodbury wrote simply, “In the Country is like no book of stories I’ve ever read and I loved it deeply” (Damien par. 25). Prize committees found merit, too, with PEN, the New York Times, Amazon, and numerous other organizations and publications awarding special recognition (“Mia Alvar”). Ordinary readers joined the bandwagon, especially as publisher Penguin Random House brought out a paperback edition in 2015, followed by e- and audiobooks, and arranged for a steady stream of author interviews. On the website Goodreads Rachel L. remarked on first not having heard about the collection, then finding it “suddenly everywhere I turned” (“In the Country” par. 4). Other subscribers to the site showered down four- and five-star ratings, and adjectives on the order of “stunning”; one suggested Mia Alvar BURNS: BOOK RECOMMENDATION UNITAS 235 Fig.
    [Show full text]
  • 35931 Marx Myles
    AUTHORS GUILD Winter 2017 BULLETIN A Writing Career: Pitching, Persisting, Getting Ahead, Getting Paid and Staying Out of Trouble New York City Passes Landmark Freelancer Law What the Trump Presidency Could Mean for Writers collecting payment at some point in their careers—and New York City are stiffed an average of $6,000 annually—will come as no surprise to many writers. One of the Guild’s most Passes Landmark Bill significant advocacy efforts in the last two decades was the $18 million class action suit we filed alongside to Protect Freelance the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the National Writers Union, and 21 freelance writers in 2000, on behalf of thousands of freelance writers who Workers had been paid by major newspapers and magazines By Brandon Reiter for one-time use of their articles, and then saw their work swept into electronic databases without further et’s start with some good news. On October 27, compensation. (The case was settled in the plaintiffs’ New York’s City Council voted unanimously in favor in 2005 but various court challenges have de- Lfavor of the “Freelance Isn’t Free Act,” providing freelance workers with an unprecedented set of legal protections against client nonpayment. Under the bill, anyone hiring a freelance worker for a project valued The legislation is the first of its kind— at $800 or more over a four-month period will have to a milestone for freelancers’ rights agree, in writing, to a contract that clearly outlines the scope of the work, the agreed-upon rate, the method of and the first serious challenge to the payment, and the payment deadline.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Meeting Access Will Be Provided Online At
    PUBLIC MEETING AGENDA Tuesday, January 26, 2021 10:00 AM- 3:00 PM Public meeting access will be provided online at https://arts.ca.gov/about/council-meetings/ 1. Call to Order L. Baza 10:00 am 2. Acknowledgment of Tribal Land A. Bown-Crawford 10:05 am 3. Roll Call and Establishment of a Quorum L. Barcena 10:10 am 4. Voting Item: Approval of Minutes from December 2, 2020 L. Baza 10:15 am Council Meeting (TAB A) 5. Chair’s Report (TAB B) L. Baza 10:20 am 6. Director’s Report (TAB C) A. Bown-Crawford 10:25 am 7. Public Comment L. Baza 10:35 ma Two forms of public comment will be offered: - Written comments will be accepted online prior to and during the Council meeting - Live comment will be accepted during this agenda item in the meeting via Zoom or phone. Live public comment may be limited to 2 minutes per person. Access and instructions will be provided at https://arts.ca.gov/about/council-meetings/ 8. Presentation: Bagley-Keene Training (TAB D) T. Prim 11:05 am Legal Attorneys from the Attorney General’s Office will give an M. Dalju overview and answer questions regarding the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act. 9. Voting Item: Panel Pool Approval (TAB E) A. Kiburi 12:35 pm Council will review and vote on additions to the pool of possible peer review panelists since the last submissions at the December 2, 2020 Council Meeting. 12:45 pm Break 10. Discussion Item: L. Baza 1:15 pm Recommendations and ideas for a Partnership Committee The Council will discuss the ideas around defining and creating a Partnership Committee.
    [Show full text]
  • The Age of Miracles Karen Thompson Walker
    The Age of Miracles Karen Thompson Walker Discussion Questions 1. As readers, why do you think we’re drawn to stories about the end of the world? What special pleasures do these kinds of narratives offer? And how do you think this element works in The Age of Miracles? 2. Julia is an only child. How does this fact affect who she is and how she sees the world? How would her experi- ence of the slowing be different if she had a sibling? How would her experience of middle school be different? 3. How much do you think the slowing alters Julia’s experience of adolescence? If the slowing had never hap- pened, in what ways would her childhood have been different? In what ways would it have been the same? 4. Julia’s parents’ marriage becomes increasingly strained over the course of the book. Why do you think they stay together? Do you think it’s the right choice? How much do you think Julia’s mother does or does not know about Sylvia? 5. Julia’s father tells several crucial lies. Discuss these lies and consider which ones, if any, are justified and which ones are not. Is lying ever the right thing to do? If so, when? 6. How would the book change if it were narrated by Julia’s mother? What if it were narrated by Julia’s father? Or her grandfather? 7. Why do you think Julia is so drawn to Seth? Why do you think he is drawn to her? 8. Did you identify more with the clock-timers or with the real-timers? Which would you be and why? 9.
    [Show full text]
  • The Change of Nature in Karen Thompson Walker's
    THE CHANGE OF NATURE IN KAREN THOMPSON WALKER’S NOVEL ‘’THE AGE OF MIRACLES’’ A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Of Sarjana Humaniora in English and Literature Department of the Faculty of Adab and Humanities of UIN Alauddin Makassar By Irnawati Reg. No. 40300110039 ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT ADAB AND HUMANITIES FACULTY ALAUDDIN STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MAKASSAR 2014 i PERSETUJUAN PEMBIMBING Pembimbing penulisan skripsi saudara; IRNAWATI, NIM: 40300110039, Mahasiswi jurusan Bahasa dan Sastra Inggris pada Fakultas Adab dan Humaniora Universitas Islam Negeri Alauddin Makassar, setelah dengan seksama meneliti dan mengoreksi skripsi yang bersangkutan berjudul “THE CHANGE OF NATURE IN KAREN THOMPSON WALKER’S NOVEL ‘’THE AGE OF MIRACLES” memandang bahwa skripsi tersebut memenuhi syarat-syarat ilmiah dan dapat disetujui untuk dapat diajukan pada sidang munaqasyah. Demikian persetujuan ini diberikan untuk diproses lebih lanjut. Samata, 15 December 2014 Pembimbing I Pembimbing II Dr. H. Barsihannor, M.Ag Nasrum Marjuni, S.Pd., M.A NIP: 19691012 199603 1 003 NIP: 19800909 201302 1 701 ii PERNYATAAN KEASLIAN SKRIPSI Dengan penuh kesadaran, penulis yang bertanda tangan dibawah ini, menyatakan bahwa skripsi ini benar adalah hasil karya penulis sendiri, dan jika dikemudian hari terbukti merupakan duplikat, tiruan, plagiat, atau dibuat oleh orang lain secara keseluruhan ataupun sebagian, maka skripsi ini dan gelar yang diperoleh batal demi hukum. Samata, 15 Desember 2014 Penulis, Irnawati 40300110039
    [Show full text]
  • Vol 18 Number 99
    Winter 2012/2013 Vol 18-Number 99 A hard-working committee of local citizens has selectedThe Age of Miracles as the book to read for Pasadena’s 11th One City, One Story program that culminates in March 2013. Hailed by an NPR book critic in July as “a pensive page-turner,” the debut novel by Karen Thompson Walker enjoyed a six-week run on the public radio network’s bestseller list (compiled weekly with the American Booksellers Association) and appeared 10 weeks on theLos Angeles Timeslist. Set in suburban Southern California, a 20-something narrator named Julia reflects upon a time when the rotation of the Earth slows, disrupting everyday life. Against this backdrop, called “the slowing,” she tells a coming-of-age story, largely from the perspective of a sensitive 11-year-old. “Both the Earth’s environment and young Julia are in the throes of seismic upheaval,” said Maureen Corrigan, the Georgetown University lecturer and 2012 Pulitzer Prize judge who reviewedThe Age of Miracles for NPR’s “Fresh Air.” Continued Corrigan: “You would expect that the most ominous words in this novel would be ‘the slowing,’ but they’re not; the most ominous words—spoken by preteen Julia—are these: ‘[N]o force on Earth could slow the forward march of sixth grade. And so, in spite of everything, that year was also the year of the dance party.’ ” Calling the book “a precocious debut,”New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani wrote in a (June 18, 2012) review: “Ms. Walker never explains the science of ‘the slowing,’ but she does a credible job of charting the avalanche of consequenc- es.
    [Show full text]