Lucy Corin Public Reading Response: The First “Big” Assignment
The first living writer we had visit our class was Lucy Corin. We had just finished reading her book, 100 Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses, which was based around the idea of the end of the world being a completely subjective thing. While it may be the end of the world to someone watching meteorites or missiles crashing down to earth, it may also be “the end of the world” to someone who knows they’re about to fail an exam or be broken up with. The end of the world is so subjective as there are so many things that make people think that the sky is falling, and because I resonate with and find this idea very interesting, I really enjoyed 100 Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses.
Getting to meet Lucy Corin was really cool. It was the first time in my life that I had read a book only to meet the author a few days to a week after finishing it and she was an excellent guest. She wasn’t overtly polite, but she was cool, down-to-earth and answered the classes questions fairly well, at least, compared to some of the other writers. My answer of hers was when she was asked about the numerous “apocalypses” in the book. She said that she did very little research for the book that writing for her is a way of exploring different topics, places, people, etc. and that’s exactly what the book was to her; a way of exploring or investigating certain kinds of people, places and things. This was interesting to me because she does such a good job providing insights into the lives of such interesting characters, characters that I don’t think I’d be able to bring to life without at least a bit of research. That limited amount of prior knowledge being used to forge familiar, believable characters is what made Lucy’s book so interesting and this quality shined even more in her public reading as the voices and stylistic changes associated with the respective characters immediately came to the forefront.
Here’s the review I wrote about the public reading I went to. This was the first bigger assignment of the semester and I struggled with it a lot as the focus was to be the public reading and what Lucy Corrin did to and for the stories by reading them allowed. I hadn’t ever written about something like that, but, thankfully, I found the strategy that worked for me which was really paying attention to not what the author was saying, but to how they were saying it. The content is important for context but the effect of the author’s performance, how they made the literature at least appear different, is what I needed to focus on. So, this first public reading review is pretty bad. I got a bad mark on it but I know why and I assure you, they get better.
Lucy Corin Reading and Reflection
Living writer Lucy Corin teaches readers to investigate the world around them and to do so by thinking about contemporary topics through the lens of fiction. This is such a strange concept due to the nature of fiction being made-up or false, but pleasantly and surprisingly, it allows one to gain insights on a topic they wouldn’t have been able to if they’d thought about it realistically. Fiction, according to Lucy, isn’t very exclusive. There are few ideas that are truly immiscible to fiction and because of this, she believes, as a fiction writer, she is able to explore any and all ideas and interestingly, she does so most frequently through characters. She believes character and theme coincide as the theme of a written work should be conveyed by the actions and emotions of the characters in the story and with such a focus on character building, Lucy is able to explore any kind of character from a privileged college student to a racist Vietnam veteran. The veil of fiction really allows writers to explore different things without getting in trouble because it is just fiction. Lucy uses different poetics in her works of fiction, and they are far easier to detect when she reads aloud. Certain rhythms and rhymes emerge from the background of the work which inspires a greater focus and deeper understanding of the work. Simply, such details make a work of fiction more interesting and hearing an author like Lucy Corin read her work the way it was intended to be read provides insights that are almost impossible to gain otherwise by inexperienced readers.
Here’s a link to buy Lucy’s book. It’s a little pricy, but the cover is super cool and it’s a great read:
https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/one-hundred-apocalypses-and-other-apocalypses