Field Notes

The majority of creative writers are jostling and jockeying to be known. We’re plagued by a desire to share our insights and stories with the world. No writer wants to die unknown.

It does her story a disservice to repeatedly stop and ask her to filter her culture through a white lens so that her struggles are more understandable.

My personal theory behind this phenomenon is that we continue to rely on the familiarity of authors and resources available in a cyclical pattern of engagement: the books that get taught/studied are the ones with an abundance of critical works written about them, and vice versa. But this recycling bin we continue to draw from is something that should be acknowledged if we ever want to change the ways in which we speak about texts.

Autofiction is a safe space. I can accept readers connecting dots, finding similarities, and seeing me through the cracks. And I think those who find themselves veiled in my work can too.

Cozy horror troubles me not due to the lack of violent or shocking content, but because its existence illustrates how wildly off-base our current cultural understanding of the horror genre is. Even we avowed horror fans seem to have forgotten our roots.

Even if we share similar experiences, the complexity of the human mind and its emotions could be written a million different ways, and in each way, be as uniquely personal and infinitely layered as the last.

These tales of family, grief and loss, life and love are the stories of the now. Interwoven with our words of the past they have created a tapestry of our six members, our stories forever intertwined.

That’s the beauty of fiction! A writer can take every crazy idea that flits through her brain and mash it, smash it, filter it, funnel it, bury it, burn it, or type it fast in all caps. The intent is there but not there. A moment of insight, a stab at the truth, a flash that fades as fast as a closed screen.