Reading Challenge 1-25 Reflections
Well I have got a quarter way to my goal of having read (and written about) 100 poems, short stories and essays.
What I have gained so far:
- Discovering Ellen Gilchrist's Rhoda stories, which are exactly the kind of story I want to read and write.
- Getting back into micro-fiction - the book Sudden Impacts being a real treasure.
- Finding several new poets to read: Denise Levertov, Laura Riding, Sonia Sanchez and Fay Zwicky are all really exciting to me. Many people have also given me a gigantic list of female poets to read.
- Becoming more comfortable writing in a different voice to that of my fiction, where there is always a pressure to be funny. Figuring out how to write sincerely about things.
But writing an entry has been challenging. Furthermore, finding something I want to write about is even more so. For every essay I choose there are two others, and every poem I read five more. I have stopped reading novels almost entirely and am putting all my reading into this blog.
Well, now that I have written 25 entries, and I think it is time to change focus from female writers to writers from other cultures. CaLD (culturally and linguistically diverse) they call it. BECAUSE I really want to finally read the Chinese and Russian and Spanish books on my shelf. Expanding my understandings of the world is also nice.
So far I worked at finishing a book of Annie Proulx stories. My next short-story focus will be Lu Xun or Yu Hua. Both collections I have always wanted to read. Chekov too, why not.