Can Horror be Literary?

I was hesitant at first to write a Halloween-related blog post because it feels a little trite. Visit almost any type of blog—food, music, film—and you’ll likely encounter a Halloween-related post. A Guide to Candy Corn Decorated Jack-O-Lanterns. Creepiest Songs of the Past Decade. 10 Classic Horror Movies You Need to Watch This Halloween. But then I went back to our blog archives and noticed that the Halloween Blog Post, as far as I can tell, has never appeared on the Snopes Blog.

So at the risk of being too conventional, I’ll venture into Season-Themed Blog Land, for the first time for the sake of considering a Halloween-appropriate genre that is typically disdained in the world of high literature: horror.

From a young age, I was exposed to horror as a genre in its various forms—particularly through books and film. As a child, I was fascinated and petrified by haunted houses, both the seasonal ones and the historic ones like the Winchester House in San Jose. For my thirteenth birthday party, my parents surprised me by renting the box at the local movie theater and inviting my friends for a showing of The Grudge 2. In high school, I carried around my dad’s collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories for months, reading and rereading stories like “The Dunwich Horror” and “Pickman’s Model.”Unknown

Now that I’m older and hopefully wiser, these things have begun to feel almost immature, for lack of a more suitable term. If I were to carry my Lovecraft collection through the English department now, I would expect a few students and professors to look askance at it, simply because works by authors who could be classified as horror writers are not usually considered “literary” or “good writing.”

That doesn’t, however, mean they aren’t worth reading or don’t have merit as works of literature. Sometimes, you just want to read a scary story, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s stylistically inventive or particularly sharp in its diction. The primary qualification for a good horror story is that it be structured in such a way that it is appropriately frightening. Constructing a story in this way requires skill, and writers of horror vary in their degrees of ability.images

But what if you are, say, a student of literature who wants to read horror with complex metaphors, classical allusions, big words, and all the other trappings of “literary” literature? Where do you turn for a more scholarly version of the Stephen King stories that you drag along to the beach?

I’m not sure that I have read any works of fiction that fit neatly into the horror genre while still being considered “literary,” but I also have not looked very hard for a book that matches this description. Perhaps as fiction becomes more sophisticated, horror elements become subtler, with fewer garish frights and more original plotlines. Maybe as we terror-seekers venture deeper into the academic side of literature, we just have to look a little harder to get our fear fix. The horrors we encounter become less fantastic and more real—Addie’s rotting corpse in As I Lay Dying, or more abstract monsters like the specter of racism in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Are there any horror novels that you find are particularly well written? Do you have any favorite books or poems that have strong elements of horror? I’d love to know. –Isabella Martin


“This Darksome Burn” by Nick Ripatrazone

For a blog post that I wrote earlier this month, I had the chance to speak with author and current contributor to Shenandoah, Nick Ripatrazone.  A professor living in New Jersey with his wife and 5-month-old identical twin girls, Ripatrazone gave me the inside scoop on his newly released novella This Darksome Burn and the process that surrounded the writing of this work in particular.  You can read more on that here.  Having now had the opportunity to read the novella myself, I feel that I can give Snopes readers a little more insight into This Darksome Burn and the features that make it stand out from anything else you’ll find on the shelves of your local bookstore.

TDBcoverSet in the rural Oregon wilderness, the novella centers around the lives of the three members of the McGovern family: Luke; his daughter, Aurea; and his son, Ford.  From the outset of the story, it is apparent that the family has been through hardship.  The mother is conspicuously absent, and the McGovern family farm seems far from prospering as it did in past generations.  However, the opening chapters work to assert the age-old idiom “when it rains, it pours”; in the first five pages alone, Luke loses the last of his family’s horses and returns home to discover that his daughter has been raped by her ex-boyfriend Baxter.  This tragic event throws the family into turmoil as Aurea attempts to make sense of what has happened to her while her father simply seeks revenge.  Stuck in the middle, Ford tries to reconcile his family’s troubles, becoming fixated on finding the lost horse as a way to assuage their pain.  This Darksome Burn raises questions about family, relationships, the nature of life and how much control we as humans have over it.

Even more significant than that of Baxter or the watchful eye of the local police, the environment is an ever-present threat in the lives of the McGovern family.  Attempting to survive in the shadow of Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains, the characters battle harsh weather, the rural landscape, and a variety of wildlife throughout the course of the novella.  These elements of nature are characters in their own right, especially the stream that curves through the woods surrounding the McGovern property.  This small, seemingly insignificant body of water is referred to by multiple characters, and it is described by all with apprehension and a sense of foreboding.  Nothing good occurs from interacting with this particular element of nature, a rule that the McGovern family seems to learn the hard way.

Nick_RipatrazoneWhen I initially compiled the interview material for use in my first blog post about This Darksome Burn, I was a little thrown off by Ripatrazone’s assertion that film had played a significant role in his writing process.  However, after reading the novella and experiencing the short, scene-like chapters, I completely understand how these “snapshots” of life work to create the story’s unique style.  Each chapter generally centers around one main subject and uses vivid description and extremely focused language to fully immerse the reader in the scene.  The chapters vary in length and when they occur (some jump months ahead while others simply describe the next action), but they all give a “zoomed in” view of the significant events in the story.  I would even liken reading This Darksome Burn to watching a film put together by an immensely skilled director, one who, with painstaking detail, captures exactly what he wants the viewer to see in each shot through his lens.

I would recommend Nick Ripatrazone’s This Darksome Burn to any reader who appreciates being fully immersed in fiction.  While I have admittedly not read a plethora of novellas, this example of the genre kept me engaged throughout its entirety with its innovative “snapshot” chapters and the raw emotion exhibited by the characters.  Of perhaps even greater value, it forced me to think about difficult aspects of the human condition while leaving me with more questions than answers by the end.

Check out Nick Ripatrazone’s new novella This Darksome Burn, which is available from Queen’s Ferry Press.


The Rise of Fan Fiction

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then perhaps Shakespeare didn’t roll over in his grave and groan when Dreamworks retold his classic play Twelfth Night in the form of a high school romantic comedy. Questions of authenticity and originality have been on the forefront of literary concern with works like Fifty Shades of Grey gaining a widespread fan base outside of its initially niche market of middle-aged housewives. Its popularity has little to do with its roots as an AU, or “alternate universe” Twilight fan fiction, originally published on the web and then picked up for publication.  This is not the first instance of fan fiction being published reputably. Sherlock Holmes, a beloved character created by Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887, became public domain and immediately short stories and books appeared using the famous the sleuth as a main or side character. People can publish books like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes where an author would crossover two worlds of fiction for a greater depth of plot. More recently, an RPF, or “real person fiction”, written by a teenage girl about her imaginary adventures with the band One Direction was picked for publication. Obviously some names must be changed and certain details blurred, but that does not change the story’s origins.

Fan fiction is not just limited to the page as many works have been adapted and re-adapted for the big or small screen. Sherlock Holmes was recently reset in the modern era by the BBC, and CBS quickly followed with their hit show, Elementary. Is it a lack of imagination that leads us to reuse old plot devices or perhaps a simple fascination with untold stories that drives people to retell a story previously told? As far back as Ancient Greece, people have been using well-known stories for their own creative ends. Sophocles brought Oedipus to life on stage, but not a single audience member would have entered the theatre without any knowledge of the Oedipus story. They attended for the same reason people watch the fifth remake of Pride and Prejudice.  A timeless story fascinates its audience to the point of inspiration.

Authors are allowed to publish novel “remixes” like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies using a great deal of the original works text and adding passages of their own. Works like this are not derivative. They are extensions of a pre-existing, already created universe manipulated to meet a new artist’s needs.  Some works have elements of fan fiction but cannot be classified as such since the original artist has given permission for alterations. This occurs in the adaptation of book to film. The Lord of the Rings films are not fan fiction. They may have previously nonexistent elements that someone has arbitrarily decided to include, but these changes are also the casualties caused by the transfer from one medium to another.

Fan fiction, and fan works, pervade the modern entertainment spheres. New books retelling fairy tales and re-imagining classic novels are being written every day with varying degrees of success.  I have The Eyre Affair and Death Comes to Pemberley patiently waiting on my Kindle for a rainy day and even though neither Austen nor Brontë had a hand in the crafting of these novels, I’m still pretty excited to read them.

– Chauncey Baker


A Conversation with Nick Ripatrazone

This Darksome BurnNick Ripatrazone, a contributor for the current issue of Shenandoah, has immersed himself in many aspects of the literary world, writing fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, serving as a founding editor of The Susquehanna Review, and teaching English courses at both secondary and undergraduate levels.  His flash fiction piece, “The Cribbing Collar,” received honorable mention in this year’s Bevel Summers Contest.  Recently, we asked Nick to share some information regarding his newly published novella, This Darksome Burn.  Named a “great new read” by High Country News, here is what the author had to say about his latest published work.

Tell us a little about This Darksome Burn.

The novella is set in the shadow of Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains, and is focused on the splintered McGovern family. Aurea is raped by her ex-boyfriend, and though her overbearing father, Luke, gains revenge, the act does little to soothe her pain. Luke soon can’t control his vengeance, causing grief to those he is supposed to love and protect.

What made you decide to write this story in the form of a novella?

I love novellas–in fact, I recently wrote an appreciation of the form for The Millions, and although this book went through a few different forms (experimental play, novel manuscript, shooting script, and, finally a novella), its final form felt the most true. I think readers who like novellas appreciate that they are short enough to digest in a day or afternoon, but long enough to be revisited and make new discoveries.

Can you give us some insight into your writing process?

I have 5 ½ month identical twin daughters, so I write in short but focused bursts, and often late at night (and on through to midnight and the early morning hours during the weekend). The forms of the novella and short fiction are perfect for me, since I can keep them churning in the back of my mind during the day (I teach public-school English, then go for an afternoon run) but they can be refined and finished in a manageable amount of time. And I’m the type of writer who relishes revision. I’m old enough to know that drafts deserve to be torn apart, and this book is the product of cross-outs, margin notes, and the guidance of my editor/publisher, Erin Knowles McKnight.

How is this novella different from your previously published work?

My first two books of creative work were poetry (Oblations was prose poetry, This Is Not About Birds was more traditional, lineated poetry–both from Gold Wake Press), so it’s been nice to see early reviewers and readers appreciate this novella’s language. I’ve published a lot of fiction (and have another novella, as well as a short story collection, coming out next year), but poetry has taught me to write word-to-word rather than paragraph-to-paragraph. I credit the brevity of that form for helping me revise this book.

What unique aspects of your writing can readers expect to find in This Darksome Burn?

As a fan of slow-burn horror films (everything from The Shining to the more recent The House of the Devil), I definitely take a filmic approach to fiction. The book’s short chapters are meant to be snapshots rather than exhaustive narratives. It’s a book that shifts between literary and horror genres, but I lean more toward the psychological horror of “The Pedersen Kid” by William Gass than gore. This is a book about people losing their hearts and minds against the backdrop of near-constant snow.

Check out Nick Ripatrazone’s new novella This Darksome Burn, which is available from Queen’s Ferry Press.


Graybeal-Gowen Poetry Award

The submission period for this year’s GRAYBEAL-GOWEN PRIZE has arrived and runs till November 15.

Click the following link to view the flyer for more information: Graybeal-Gowen Flyer


Annie Persons is currently the managing editor for Shenandoah. She is a junior English major and Creative Writing minor at Washington and Lee University. Her favorite pastimes are reading and writing, and she hopes to continue engaging with literature for the rest of her life.

Is Literature Fashionable? Is Fashion Literary?

Recently, it seems as if brands are beginning to embrace the bookish, nerdy side in all of us.  I was especially struck by Kate Spade’s collection of clutches that looked like books. They started off with The Great Gatsby, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, The Importance of Being Earnest, Great Expectations, and Romeo and Juliet.  The series apparently became so popular that Kate Spade decided to roll out more—now, one can purchase The Age of Innocence, The Portrait of a Lady, and A Tale of Two Cities. All clutches feature brightly colored and dynamically designed “covers,” which bear no resemblance to any prior publisher copies.  For $328 you too can show off how well read and stylish you are, or you can be stylish and pretend you’re well read. books

So what is it that makes this high-end retailer decide to begin marketing icons of literature in such a way? Why were these titles picked? Is what Kate Spade puts on their clutches suddenly going to be what every fashionable cosmopolitan 20-something decides they have to read? Is literature fashionable? I certainly can’t answer all these questions, but I’ll take a stab at it.

I think perhaps the big on-screen adaptations of classic novels could have, in part, inspired these items.  Great Gatsby? When people heard it was being remade, pretty much the whole country ran out to re-read the book, and then go on to misinterpret the point of the novel as “wow Gatsby threw great parties, huh?” and decide that 20’s fashion is in. Classics like Anna Karenina and Jane Eyre were also recently made into movies, both encouraging people to reread these popular novels but also showcasing gorgeous costumes.  As for the titles picked, they clearly skew very classic, popular novels accepted as canon, and nothing that would be too controversial.  This ensures that people know the books and that people would want to purchase the clutches because they know an enduring novel means an enduring fashion statement.

Will these books have a sudden reemergence in the set of modern young women who would purchase such items? Possibly.  Just like movie adaptations reinvigorate book sales, so could fashion.  But these are also novels that constantly get reread and rediscovered.  Dickens, Austen, Wilde, and Shakespeare are read constantly, though of course some socialite who doesn’t often read could pick up one of these clutches and think, “Hmm, The Importance of Being Earnest sounds good, maybe I should read it.”

Interestingly, the relationship between fashion and literature is symbiotic. After clicking about on the Internet, I learned that books and literature can inspire fashion designers as well.  A Japanese clothing brand, Juliette et Justine, was inspired by the Marquis de Sade’s books—expect some lace, ruffles, and chokers. Prabal Gurung’s Fall 2011 line was inspired by Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. Desiging Duo Shipley and Halmos’s Fall 2009 collection was inspired by “the philosophy of Ayn Rand (http://flavorwire.com/162418/books-that-inspired-fashion-designers/).  These examples would make any literary snob skeptical, I’m sure.  The Marquis de Sade? Wouldn’t have gone anywhere near fluffy and cutesy clothing. Miss Havisham? Only wears her old wedding dress; that could barely serve as inspiration for a whole line. Ayn Rand? I would hazard a guess that she almost has more critics than admirers now and who even knows how to translate that into clothing.  But I think what we can glean from this is that people will always interpret literature the way they want to. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing—literature serves to inspire, even if the clothing line isn’t the same wedding dress done 12 different times.

audreyLiterary characters are often described and even defined by their outfits. Clarissa Dalloway wears her “silver-green mermaid’s dress” at her party, Anna Karenina wears “a low-cut black velvet gown,” and Hester Prynne wears the scarlet letter—not her own choice of a fashion statement, but still. Perhaps the most iconic combination of fashion in literature is Holly Golightly, of Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s—the everyday woman might not be able to tell you what happened in the novella but they will know that Audrey Hepburn wore a slim black dress, pearls, and big black sunglasses.

Literature CAN be incorporated into fashion, and fashion often occurs as a statement in literature.  The relationship might not be the most overt, but the symbiosis is there. Do you agree? Would you pay $328 for a Pride and Prejudice clutch? Is there a literary figure that you think wore something pretty iconic? I’d love to hear it! –Taylor McPherson


Short Stories Finally Getting the Respect They Deserve -Sam O’Dell

The most recent Nobel Prize for Literature was just awarded to Alice Munro, a Canadian author of several collections of short stories – 15 total since her first was published in 1968. Interestingly, unlike most other fiction writers who have won a Nobel Prize for Literature, Munro has never released a novel. In an interview with the New York Times, Munro discusses the importance of receiving the Nobel despite this fact. Unknown

“I would really hope this would make people see the short story as an important art, not just something you played around with until you got a novel,” she told the Times.

Munro is the first author to win the prize for a lifetime of work that revolves entirely around short stories. Other recipients often had short stories in their portfolios, but their bodies of work revolved instead around their novels or, for some, their poems. For whatever reason, short stories have long been regarded as the novel’s less-sophisticated younger cousin. Getting a collection of short stories published does not often carry the same kind of prestige as doing the same with a full-length novel.

Of course, here at Shenandoah, we pride ourselves on the publication of several high-quality short stories every year. They are an integral part of the magazine’s content, and we typically publish upwards of four in every issue, as well as quite a few pieces of flash fiction. There is obviously something about a great short piece that makes it just as relevant in the literary world as any novel.

Short stories are, as the name implies, shorter than novel-length works. This brevity can result in a hyper-concentration of the most desirable attributes of any story, whether it be novel-length or shorter. When an author sets out with the intention to write a short story, they are tasked with making the reader care about his or her characters and the outcome of the story in much less than a quarter of the length novelists have to work with. Because of this, excellent dialogue, description, characterization, and plot all unfold rapidly before the reader’s eyes. Too often longer works can get bogged down with unnecessary padding that adds little to the plot or character development. Short stories with the same problem are easily identified as weak and quickly passed over for something better.

imagesI agree with Munro: people should stand up and take notice of short stories and their authors. It’s time we stopped overlooking this integral piece of literature and begin to accord it the respect it deserves as a form. After all, if poems can be highly literary pieces of work in fewer than ten lines, then why write off the short story? –Sam O’Dell


Annie Persons is currently the managing editor for Shenandoah. She is a junior English major and Creative Writing minor at Washington and Lee University. Her favorite pastimes are reading and writing, and she hopes to continue engaging with literature for the rest of her life.

A Poet Laureate’s Portrait

The most significant position in the world of poetry is that of the United States Poet Laureate.  Every year the Librarian of the U.S. Congress selects a poet for this position.  As America’s official poet, the Poet Laureate serves a term from October to May and sets the national tone for the poetry field.  In June 2012, Natasha Trethewey was appointed as the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States; she is also the Mississippi Poet Laureate.

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At only 46 years old, Trethewey is one of the youngest poets to assume this reveredposition.  Trethewey’s appointment is particularly significant not only because of her age range, but also because of her racial and geographical origins.  She is the first African-American Poet Laureate since Rita Dove, who held the position from 1993-1995.  Trethewey is also the first Southern poet to hold this prestigious post since Robert Penn Warren in the 1940s.

Trethewey’s fascinating yet tragic past has shaped her as both an effective poet and a biracial woman.  She was born in Gulfport, Mississippi in 1966, a period of great racial strife in America, particularly within the Southern states.  At this time, the marriage between her white father and colored mother was considered illegal.  Her parents divorced during her childhood, and her mother remarried a man she later divorced.  In a tragic turn of events, this ex-husband later murdered Trethewey’s mother.  Trethewey draws on this heart-breaking event and her complex racial and Southern identity in many of her poetry collections, such as Native Guard, which was published in 2006.  This collection earned Trethewey the Pulitzer Prize in 2007The poet has also authored Thrall (2002), Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2010), Bollocq’s Ophelia (2002), and Domestic Work (2000).

Trethewey directs Emory University’s Creative Writing Program and is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing (Poetry Foundation).  Trethewey’s style blends both modern and traditional techniques. While employing free verse, poetry that neither rhymes nor has regular meter, Trethewey also invokes the established sonnet and villanelle forms (“New Poet Looks Deep Into Memory, The New York Times).  Her use of these forms parallels her exploration of American racial history and the modern racial crisis.

NativeGuardDuring my reading of Native Guard, I was amazed at Trethewey’s pervasive themes of familial loss, racial struggle, and Southern identity.  One of my favorite poems in this collection is “The Elegy for the Native Guards,” which mourns the black regiments in the Civil War, the Native Guards.  While the white Confederate soldiers are memorialized for their service in the war, Trethewey questions the lack of commemoration for the colored soldiers.  Her poem is meant to eternally honor their sacrifice.  As the current U.S. Poet Laureate, Trethewey has already played a major role in leading the literary world in her exploration of memory as well as the racial and geographical identification of oneself.

– Maddie Thorpe


maddieMaddie Thorpe has twice served as a Shenandoah intern, once as Poem of the Week Editor and once as Social Networking Editor.  She is from Southern California and will take a degree in English from Washington and Lee in spring of 2014.

Qualifying Short Stories

I have read more short stories in the past month than I ever have before. As a first-time submissions editor for Shenandoah, with full access to the hundreds of submissions for the next issue, I have discovered that judging fiction is a weird business. It is also impossible to do alone.

On my first day reading submissions, I wondered how I would be able to separate the publishable stories from those that were not. Professor Smith said that, cyberspace being theoretically infinite,  we could choose to publish all of them if we wanted to, but, of course, that would diminish the prestige of the magazine. So we have to be selective. That we receive more good stories than we can accept, though, is what makes the task of selecting a few for publication challenging. A lot of the time there are no discernible, objective criteria that I can base a judgment on, and I end up justifying my approval of a story by saying, “I know this is good. You can just tell.” If I attempt to explain how I know, I say things like, “The sentence structure is good and diversified. The narrator has a unique and mature voice. The story moves well. It is exciting, etc.”

a-good-man-is-hard-to-find1But none of these qualities are necessary or sufficient for defining a good story. Even if Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard To Find” were submitted to Shenandoah and I had never read it or been told that it is an “ingenious” short story, it probably would not be an immediately recognizable work of brilliant fiction. I think what generates a lot of the appeal for famous works of fiction is not solely an objective evaluation of their intrinsic quality, but also that we are taught to recognize them as works of genius. When enough people surrounding you believe a short story is good, you will begin second-guessing whatever previous doubts you had about it.

poe1

It may be impossible to come up with any universal checklist of qualities that make a good short story. But without even a vague awareness of what those qualities could be the short story selection process is nothing more than subjective, which is why having two evaluators is better than having one. However, if there is anyone justified in providing criteria for a good short story, it is Edgar Allan Poe, whom many regard as the founder of the short story. He laid out three criteria that he thought all short stories should fulfill: (1) the story has unity of impression—it makes a single impression on the reader, concentrating on a (2) moment of crisis. Every short story must have one and only one moment of crisis. (3) Finally, the story must have symmetry of design, i.e. the crisis must be central and pivotal in the plot.

Thankfully, Poe is not an intern for Shenandoah. His criteria may be a good platform for creating a short story, but they certainly are not necessary for a quality short story. Also thankfully, (and to the submitters’ relief) I am not alone in reviewing the hundreds of short stories Shenandoah receives. Judging the quality of a story, and whether it is fit for publication in Shenandoah, is definitely a team effort.

– Miles Abell


The Writing Compulsion

In compiling and selecting works for Shenandoah, I constantly wonder why people read fiction and especially why authors want to write fiction.  In considering this question, I turned to the words of fiction authors in order to understand their motivations for producing their works.  Toni Morrison, author of Home, the novel we reviewed for the magazine last semester, sums up the task of fiction writers quite perfectly: “the ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.”  Is fiction writing the ultimate challenge for writers, considerably more so than nonfiction?  Morrison relates fiction writing as a multifaceted trial for writers.

Unknown-1

This process involves great imagination as well as the ability to make mundane ideas interesting and complex ideas relatable.  I believe that Morrison and many other authors write fiction for the sheer challenge it presents.  Ray Bradbury described the writing process in a more emotional sense: “the answer to all writing, to any career for that matter, is love.”  The key to writing and the desire to write is passion.

While I agree that omnipresent challenges and passion are inherent in writing fiction, I also believe that authors write fiction in order to reconcile their own experiences in reality as well as their imaginations.  Instead of writing non-fiction about their lives and the issues they have faced, they transcribe this reality into fantasy.  I also believe that this can be a form of escapism from reality.  For example, books in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series provide an alternate world for readers, one of magical spells and castles.  However, the characters are youths facing the trials and tribulations that plague every teenager and young adult.  Rowling creates this fantastic realm while reconciling the true issues of morality, love, and relationships.  J.K. Rowling has said, “Sometimes the ideas just come to me.  Other times I have to sweat and almost bleed to make ideas come.  It’s a mysterious process, but I hope I never find out exactly how it works.  I like a mystery, as you may have noticed.”  Like Bradbury, Rowling also describes writing as a deep-seeded desire: “I’ll be writing until I can’t write anymore.  It’s a compulsion with me.  I love writing.”

Unknown I agree with Rowling’s description of writing as a compulsion, or a craving.  As one of the most popular fiction writers of our generation, Rowling was driven to finish the wildly successful series.  She and other fiction writers reconcile reality with fantasy, appealing to the masses. They provide both an escape and a relatable tale for readers.

– Maddie Thorpe


maddieMaddie Thorpe has twice served as a Shenandoah intern, once as Poem of the Week Editor and once as Social Networking Editor.  She is from Southern California and will take a degree in English from Washington and Lee in spring of 2014.