An overview of my Master of Creative Writing exegesis looking at the unique qualities writers from mixed identities bring to prose.
For the complete exegesis see my website:
www.leanneradojkovich.com/me
My flash fiction story "The Onion" is here on SlideShare:
www.slideshare.net/leanneradojkovich/the-onion-27555475
I also have "Pirates" on SlideShare - a small story about classroom bullying; and revenge.
http://www.slideshare.net/leanneradojkovich/pirates-30443480
A collection of ten flash stories is on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/LeanneFlash
Please see my website if you'd like more info:
www.leanneradojkovich.com
2. Writers with two or more
linguistic and cultural identities
have a wide range of storytelling
techniques.
3. Unique prose styles result from
exposure to dual:
• environments
• behavioural norms
• languages
4. Knowing two languages means
knowing two syntaxes - leading
to fresh sentence structures.
5. Time stops when someone dies. Of course it stops
for them, maybe, but for the mourners time runs
amok. Death comes too soon. It forgets the tides,
the days growing longer and shorter, the moon.
Lucia Berlin
"Wait a Minute"
7. I was popular in certain circles, says Aunt Rose. I
wasn't no thinner then, only more stationary in the
flesh, Lillie, don't be surprised – change is a fact of
God. From this no one is excused.
Grace Paley
"Goodbye and Good Luck"
8. "I think the most powerful sounds are...those
childhood voices... Russian and Yiddish, coming up
smack against the English."
Grace Paley
9. Words from one language can
be reused in another - creating
neologisms.
10. So I said to Mrs. Z., one oi out of you and it's
divorce.
Grace Paley
"Zagrowsky Tells"
12. "Si, Doña Claudia. Pero, del gozo al pozo!"
He said this any time things were going well. From
pleasure you go to the pits, or, from delight to the
cess pool.
Lucia Berlin
"Del Gozo Al Pozo"
14. "...writers of mixed identity...retain the sites of
friction where different racial, sexual, and national
elements meet, forming sparks and sharp edges."
Suzanne Bost
16. # 1 Direct sensuous details to
describe place and character.
17. Larks and meadowlarks, redwinged blackbirds
darted above the ditches by the road; the singing
of the birds rose above the sound of the truck.
Lucia Berlin
"Bluebonnets"
18. Aunt Martha had blue permanented hair and big
round rouge spots on her cheeks. She wore a red
flowered muu-muu and she crushed me to her,
rocking me, hugging me. I was enfolded into the
vast poinsettias on her breasts. In spite of myself I
clung to her, sank into her and her smell of
Jergen's lotion, Johnson's baby powder.
Lucia Berlin
"Itinerary"
22. Goodbye, I said, have a nice day. Goodbye, they
said once more, and set off in pride on paths which
are not my concern.
Grace Paley
"The Used-Boy Raisers"
23. The alertness borne of linguistic
and cultural hybridity has
produced a vivid prose style
with the candour of memoir.
24. Read more in my Master of Creative Writing exegesis "The Literary Benefits of
Linguistic and Cultural Hybridity" available on my website.
http://www.leanneradojkovich.com/me