The ABC Story

This is how Crazy For You got started. In 1996, Ron Carlson gave my graduate class a writing exercise based on a Joyce Carol Oates story that was structured by using 26 sentences, the first one beginning with A, the second with B, and so on. When I sat down to write the story, I thought Carlson was giving us busy work. When I finished it, I knew he was a genius teacher because writing that exercise showed me that any structure will work as long as it is a structure. So here it is from the Carlson Workshop, my Alphabet Exercise: Continue reading →