Posts by Lee Martin
Stuart Dybek’s “Sunday at the Zoo”: A Class in Narrative Structure
When I was teaching at the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers’ Conference, I offered a class on narrative structure that used Stuart Dybek’s short-short story, “Sunday at the Zoo,” as an example. If you’re interested, you can find the story in the first edition of Sudden Fiction, edited by Robert Shapard and James…
Read MoreShaping a Novel: A Report from My Latest Workshop
I’m back from teaching in the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers’ Workshop and I’ve been trying to get used to not having the stimulation of excellent readings by faculty and participants alike, thought-provoking craft talks, and the excitement of the daily workshop that I led. I had a group of six talented writers…
Read MoreDid You Hear the One About. . .?: Corny Jokes and Stories
Okay, I confess. I never met a horrible pun or a corny joke that I can resist. The dumber the better. Q: What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor? A: “Hey, where’s my tractor.” See what I mean? There’s something about the naked admission that the joke is stupid that wins me…
Read MoreNostalgia and the Writer
Last night, I started a Facebook group for folks who grew up in my hometown, Sumner, Illinois. As some of you already know, I lived on a farm ten miles from Sumner until I started the third grade, at which time my mother took a teaching position in Oak Forest, Illinois, a southwestern suburb of…
Read MoreThe Forgotten Places: Our Shrinking Rural Areas
An Associated Press news article reports this morning that the rural United States now holds only 16% of the population. In 1910, the year my mother was born, 72% of the population lived in rural areas. It’s no surprise to me that more and more of us live in cities, but one sentence in this…
Read MoreOne Part of Me and Another Part of Me: Deepening the Important Moments in Memoir
Last week, I spent five days teaching a creative nonfiction workshop for ten high school students who were participating in our Young Writers Workshop at Ohio State University. Twenty-eight rising juniors and seniors from Columbus City Schools gathered for a week-long immersion into the study of creative writing. This is a residential program that allows…
Read MoreBREAK THE SKIN at the Richland County Fair
My special correspondent in Southeastern Illinois offers up a report from this year’s Richland County Fair in Olney. The traditional foods are back: funnel cakes, lemon shake-ups, corn dogs, cotton candy, salt water taffy, pork burgers, etc. My correspondent reports that the 4-H Club’s lemon shakeups were the best from all the stands offering that…
Read MoreRainy Day Chatter
It’s a stormy day here in Columbus, Ohio. One of those days that starts out hot and humid and then by mid-afternoon the skies darken and for a time everything goes still. Solar landscape lights come on in people’s flowerbeds, the clouds deepen, the scent of the rain to come is just a whiff in…
Read MoreA Writing Exercise
Folks, I’m sorry I haven’t done a new post in a while. I’ve been busy with a few events for the release of my new novel, Break the Skin, which, much to my great fortune, got a very good review in The New York Times. Here’s a link in case you’d like to check it…
Read MoreOn Father’s Day
Anyone who’s read my memoirs, From Our House and Turning Bones, knows that my father was a farmer who lost both of his hands in an accident in November, 1956. He wore prostheses the rest of his life, and he continued to farm. My relationship was uneasy with him until my later teen years when…
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