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Six Years After by Katherine Mansfield
“Six Years After” is a short story by Katherine Mansfield, first published in 1923 after the author’s death. Find it in The Doves’ Nest and Other Stories, alongside other works considered incomplete.
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How To Write Like Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson did not only write disturbing supernatural stories. Her most famous short story is “The Lottery”.
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Forgiveness In Families by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“Forgiveness In Families” is a short story by Canadian author Alice Munro. Find it in Munro’s 1974 collection Something I Have To Tell You.
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“The Stephen King Of Japan”: Dark Water Film Study
Today let’s talk about an excellent Japanese horror film (J-horror) directed by Hideo Nakata based on a short story by author Kōji Suzuki, who also wrote The Ring.
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Journey by Patricia MacLachlan (1991)
Journey is a middle grade novel by American author Patricia MacLachlan (1938-2022). MacLachlan was a prolific author and published over 60 novels, eventually collaborating with her daughter. People may know her best for Sarah, Plain and Tall which won the 1986 Newbery Medal. She won it again for Journey, a slim paperback of just 80…
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Dear Marjorie: A Short Crime Story
Dear Marjorie, I wonder if you’ve had much to do with law-enforcement. Twice now, I’ve had the experience of an official rat-a-tat-tat at my own abode…
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Wake For Susan by Cormac McCarthy Short Story Analysis
If you weren’t told who wrote “Wake for Susan” (1959), I doubt you’d guess it were by American author Cormac McCarthy.
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Describing Australian Landscapes in Literature
How do Australian authors describe Australian landscapes, making it fresh every time? Here are some examples.
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From Rain Man to The Maid: Autistic Archetypes in Contemporary Fiction
Autism Awareness (TM) is starting to impact reader interpretations of texts which seem to star Autistic main characters.
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Flash: A Short Story
I will meet my husband tonight. I’m not yet sure what he looks like. But, like the perfect pair of shoes, I’ll know him when I see him. I’ve met him in my mind, in these daydreams I call ‘flash forwards’: a hazy, pale face with brownish hair. Well, that narrows it down. Tonight is…
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Lemon Girl
Callous and Unemotional Traits After Charlie’s psychologist talked to her mum, Charlie overheard her mum leaking Charlie’s private business over the phone. “Hun,” Michelle began. ‘Hun’ meant Lionel, Charlie’s dad. Michelle had shut herself inside her own bedroom, but Charlie heard everything from the other side of the wall. “Are you sitting down, hun? Because we…
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Lemon Girl
Is it possible to become an ethical psychopath? Charlie wrestles with her urges to create havoc by puppeteering her peers.
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About
I’ve disabled right-click and copy functionality on this blog after more than a decade without it. This was prompted by trackbacks from AI-powered paraphrasing sites. While it makes no difference to me personally if someone uses info on this site to get an essay written or whatever, these technologies can’t mean anything good for humanity…
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What does it mean to be human?
What does it mean to be human? Dancing, music, love, sex, cooking, other people… You’ll have heard these answers. Many are problematic. We’ll talk about ‘what makes us human’ and say it must be ‘language’ or ’empathy’ or ‘culture’ or ‘the capacity for thought’ or ‘the need for stories’ — I could go on. The…
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Images by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
**UPDATE LATE 2024** After Alice Munro died, we learned about the real ‘open secrets’ (not so open to those of us not in the loop) which dominated the author’s life. We must now find a way to live with the reality that Munro’s work reads very differently after knowing certain decisions she made when faced…