by Jamie Chavez | May 19, 2016 | Words & Language
One of the fundamental principles of structuralism is “the arbitrariness of the sign,” the idea that there is no necessary, existential connection between a word and its referent. Not “rightly is they called pigs,” as the man said, but by linguistic chance. Other...
by Jamie Chavez | May 16, 2016 | Books You Might Like, The Writing Craft
It’s nearly 500 pages long—and I flew through Helen Simonson’s second novel set in an English village. I never wanted to put it down. Also, it made me angry (on behalf of a character I loved), and it made me cry a couple times. This is a sign that I was fully...
by Jamie Chavez | Mar 14, 2016 | The Writing Craft
Some months ago I read a manuscript that actually used this line: Little did I know I would come to regret those words. No kidding. Me too. I know, I know: you’re just trying to create a little mystery, a little portent. But when I see a line like this— I had no idea...
by Jamie Chavez | Mar 10, 2016 | Authors & Other Writers
I was talking to a reporter the other day and she asked me if I thought my studies in philosophy had affected my writing, shaped the forms I chose to write in. I told her that I didn’t separate knowledge into genres or categories because it seemed to me that all of us...
by Jamie Chavez | Feb 1, 2016 | Authors & Other Writers, The Writing Craft
I’d forgotten how much I enjoy Anne Tyler, “winner of the Pulitzer Prize” (in 1989 for Breathing Lessons) as the cover of my hardback copy says, conveniently leaving out a host of other prizes and details, including that her first college prof, Reynolds Price, once...
