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What do birds symbolize in literature?
Birds are much older than we are — living dinosaurs. Across cultures, birds function as smart collaborators with humans. We now know how smart (some) birds really are, but we have long had a sense of their canniness. The smartest bird in the world is currently thought to be the New Zealand Kea, which isn’t…
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What is delayed decoding?
Delayed decoding is a technique used by the Literary Impressionists and writers who came after. The term was coined by Ian Watt in a 1972 lecture “Pink Toads and Yellow Curs: An Impressionist Narrative Device in Lord Jim”. Joseph Conrad is well-known for using this technique.
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I Am Not A Fox by Wolf and Groenink Analysis
I Am Not A Fox is a picture book written by Karina Wolf and illustrated by Chuck Groenink. If you’ve ever read “The Ugly Duckling” and thought, “hmm, that message has problems”, then this one might be for you.
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The clues to a great story: notes on the TED talk
Andrew Stanton’s work:
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The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash by Hakes Noble and Kellogg Analysis
The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash (1980) is a carnivalesque, cumulative picture book written by Trinka Hakes Noble and illustrated by Steven Kellogg. This picture book is a great mentor text for the way it handles dialogue visually, and also for the way the ironic distance between text and image expands at the end,…
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My Mother’s Dream by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“My Mother’s Dream” is a short story by Alice Munro, and the final offering in The Love Of A Good Woman (1998). This is an absolute masterclass in how to subvert an established narrative trope. NARRATION Like Ian McEwan’s Nutshell or Jeffery Eugenides’ Middlesex, a child narrates the life of their own parent, starting from…
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What Is Cosmic Horror?
Do humans see reality as it really is? This is a fundamental question behind cosmic horror and is one philosophers and deep thinkers still ponder today.
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What does it mean, Belling The Cat?
‘Belling the cat’ is idiom which means that it’s all very well to come up with good ideas as a fix, but executing those good ideas is another matter. It comes from a fable of yore, in which rats come up with a great idea for foiling a predatory cat. They’ll put a bell around…
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What is the atomic style of illustration?
The atomic style of illustration is closely related to ‘ligne claire’. In French this means ‘clear line’. The ligne claire/atomic style of drawing was created and pioneered by Hergé (real name Georges Prosper Remi). Hergé was Belgian and lived from 1907 to 1983. He is best known for creating The Adventures of Tintin. Hergé’s style…
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The Cat In The Hat by Dr Seuss: Archetypal Carnivalesque
The Cat in the Hat is a 1957 children’s book written and illustrated by the American author Theodor Geisel, using the pen name Dr. Seuss. I keep mentioning this book as an archetypal example of the carnivalesque story subgenre in children’s literature but I’ve never actually broken that down, until now! THE REVOLUTIONARY POWER OF…
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There’s A Crocodile Under My Bed! by Ingrid and Dieter Schubert Analysis
There’s A Crocodile Under My Bed! is a picture book written and illustrated by Ingrid and Dieter Schubert. First published in 1980, that makes this classic forty years old. There are a large number of picture books about creatures lurking under beds, and many similar titles out there. The most widely known is Mercer Meyer’s…
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The Symbolism of Hats and Crowns
Hats can turn you into a human. Hats also indicate your social status and show deference.
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What does liminal mean?
Liminal is all about the concepts of transition and shifting ambiguities, categorised by disorientation and a loss of belonging. Who knows, you might be in a liminal space right now.
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What is parallax in literature?
How do you create a parallax effect in writing? There are two standout techniques.
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Singing My Sister Down by Margo Lanagan Analysis
“Singing My Sister Down” is a horror short story by Australian author Margo Lanagan. Find it in Lanagan’s collection Black Juice, published by Allen and Unwin. Black Juice was published in 2004, but “Singing My Sister Down” has proven especially resonant with readers, anthologised numerous times since. “Singing My Sister Down” is now a modern Australian…