Fringes Of Nonfiction 2021

Hey everyone! This piece by Gavin Lamb gives us some hopefully helpful advice from various other writers that have also at one point been in our positions as well. The piece of advice that has been brought into the spotlight over and over again for Lamb was how to not give up on writing. One of the authors that he particularly highlights is Ta-Nehisi Coates who says that making a living as a writer is really difficult and that it will be hard to want to continue to write because success doesn't come very quick often times and very few people will even make it to the big league levels where they can make a nice living off of just their writing alone. I know for me it can be especially tough as someone who is better at writing fiction than non-fiction and trying to come up with ideas for stories that not only would I want to read and write but for other people that will hopefully enjoy my writing and story ideas as well. I think another problem that I have is that if I don't have...

 Hey Everyone! Since this piece is relatively short, I thought it only fair that I do a little additional research and provide a few brief highlights from John Lewis’s long and distinguished career in public service and civil rights leadership. A native of Alabama, Lewis was one of the original Freedom Riders and served as the chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. At the age of only 23, he spoke at the 1963 March on Washington on behalf of SNCC. He also led the first march from Selma to Montgomery. On that Bloody Sunday, the marchers were attacked by state troopers, who beat Lewis and fractured his skull. He was elected to Congress in 1986 and became known as “the conscience of the Congress.” A writer, he received the National Book Award in 2016 for his graphic novels on the Civil Rights Movement. He was serving his 17 th term in Congress, representing his Georgia district, when he passed away at age 80 from pancreatic cancer. Lewis mentions several names and pla...

  Hello everyone!  While reading Monica Berlin’s “The Eighteenth Week”, I couldn’t help but notice the unique ways in which she went about writing this essay. The different shifts in point of view helped create this nonlinear story that was about the life of this woman who was having issues in her pregnancy and her mental health, while also tying in a story about the repairs of an old house she was living in. The themes of pregnancy and house repairs juxtaposed each other throughout the whole essay and it made for an interesting read. I know at times while I was reading I couldn’t help but be a little lost in the different point of views- it would go from her struggling about her pregnancy to the workers and what they were thinking or doing. For a couple of moments I caught myself just wanting some clarity on one point of view rather than it bumping around from one to the other. But isn’t that the beauty of writing and being creative? To have freedom in our writing. I think we...