Workshop for "Milk and Snails"

I really like the use of the Backstreet Boys song between lines as the main character was discovering her sister's eating disorder. Also, I thought the jump from discovering the milk of magnesia to the flashback was really clever. I do think this story needs a bit more development though. I think the beginning and the end are exactly what they should be, but the middle needs more detail because I didn't really feel like I was "seeing" the story. Also, some parts were a little confusing and hard to believe. I think the author is "telling" the reader what is going on more than "showing" the reader.

I would strongly suggest changing this story into 3rd person limited. Also, It would be a nice touch if the reader could see the protagonist's thoughts. For example, instead of telling us "I was scared to go in, but quickly found that the smoke was just steam from the shower," we could read exactly what the thirteen-year-old protagonist was thinking in the moment.

Workshop for "The Hurricane"

I feel like this is a very well-researched piece. There is a real sense of insightful here, and even though I know nothing about surfing, I feel like I can believe how these characters act.

An issue I had with the writing was a bit of choppiness every once in a while. In the paragraph that began with "The storm bore down on the ocean..." I felt as though there should be tumultuous nature to this part of the story, however I felt like I was being given a chronological list of events. This does not true of the entire story though. The  paragraph that began with "I'd never surfed waves like this..." is an example of a part of the story that flowed really well, and did an excellent job of bringing me into the action as a reader.

Workshop for "The Secularist"

The word choice in this piece is really impressive. Not only did it aid in the flow of the story, but it made it very easy for me to visualize the events depicted. Also, the dialogue is really good and makes the characters more well-rounded. I kind of get a sense of who these people are just by reading how they speak. 

One minor issue I did have with the dialogue is the use of interruptions. I feel like there are too many. I know these can be important to having diversity in the language, but sometimes I felt that they were inappropriate or unnecessary. This could have been because there were so many of them. These were really the only things that were breaking up the dialogue and distracting me from the story. 

Workshop "Hitting Hard"

This is a well-rounded story with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. In my opinion, that's 75% of a great story so I think you're in damn good shape.

I really like the way this story progressed. It didn't give everything away right off the bat, and it showed me more than told me. That is one thing I definitely look for in a story. The plot is really well-rounded, and I don't really think that it needs anything else. However, I did notice that the characters are a little flat, more-so the man than the woman. The woman is a surprising, interesting character while the man seems to be a stereotypical "manly-man," haphazardly thrown together for the woman to interact with. I think if you polished up your characters a little bit this story would be amazing.

Critique of Stuart Dybek's "We Didn't"

I'm writing this critique as a native Chicagoan. I suppose everyone has a special relationship with their home town and judges writing based in that place somewhat harshly, or at least diligently. The first thing that struck me is the use of kielbasa, almost as part of the setting. I'm pretty sure this is a midwestern thing as well as a Chicago thing, but where one gets his meat and who is making it is very important when judging your neighbors. I thought it was a nice touch and an appropriate tip-of-the-hat to the town when it was mentioned. Next, the fact that this story was set on the beach at night is probably my favorite part of the story. I know this was set years before I was a teenager, but I know that only hormonally driven teenagers are the only ones who venture to the lake at night, mainly because the beaches close at sundown and nobody else is stupid enough to risk getting a ticket.

A part of the story that I loved was the intrusion of the dead pregnant woman in the lives of the two main characters. At first it seems as if the dead woman is getting between the two lovebirds, but then I realized that the narrator's unabashed sexual desire was getting between them and the dead girl was more of an excuse. I don't think his girlfriend wanted to be so physical with him. Through the narrator's own description, he was far too aggressive, far too careless (a sandy condom?), and virtually disinterested in the girl herself. The girl may have known this, but I think she was kidding herself and using the trauma of seeing the dead woman as some sort of protection mechanism. The narrator thinks the summer was ruined by that terrible experience, but he had simply encountered the same thing every teen boy does: a disinterested teenaged girl.

My Father's Love

The love between my father and my mother was so strong that not even the crawling vine ofparenthood could penetrate their bond. It was love at first sight, he said. On their first ten dates he brought my young mother a single four o’clock to wear in her hair. This is not uncommon, I suppose. Though in adulthood I have never discovered such a love for myself.

            Just over a year after meeting my father, my mother was pregnant with me. When I became pregnant with my own children he would often reminisce about how beautiful my mother looked in the glow of pregnancy and how it is every man’s dream to witness a beautiful woman’s journey into motherhood. “I always thought of her as my angel”, said my father. “But it wasn’t ‘til she was with child that I knew she was truly sent from heaven. For me.” After I lost my first child I could hear my father whispering to my husband, “Keep your head up, son. At least she’s OK. You are luckier than you know.”

            Of course, my husband and I did conceive three beautiful children. Although, Dad seemed to retract from us after the kids were born. When he first met my daughter when she was nine months old he told me she looked just like my mother. “Her nose. She has her nose. Just like you.” Then I collapsed onto him in my mother’s chair and we cried together. Me, with haphazard little spurts of laughter, and him with deep gasps for air.

            He died a few weeks ago. A terrible accident. He fell out of his chair and managed to strangle himself. The coroner’s sweet apprentice brought me brownies at the funeral and said, “So sorry about your dad. Such a neat, agreeable man.”

            “Yes, he was agreeable, wasn’t he?” I replied.

            “You know, I had never seen a dead body before your dad. I mean, not in real life. Just cadavers and the like. You’d think I would, you know, freak out or lose my lunch or something. But, it was so strange, when we first arrived on scene, before we went upstairs, the whole house was full of fresh flowers. The smell was unbelievable. It was like a wedding, or a…well…you know. And then, when we got up to his room and I saw him…there, it wasn’t gruesome at all. In fact, he was smiling.”

            I nodded compliantly and thought that I could never recall my father smiling.