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We Talk About Love By George Saunders And Lance Olsen

Decent Essays

In order to become the writer I aspired to be post-undergrad, I knew I needed to change some of my static habits. One of these conventions was consuming the same type of literature year after year and not allowing myself enough time to write. So I began taking recommendations from peers I respected and read works from writers I had met. Raymond Carver, Junot Díaz, Colum McCann, Anne Lamott, Sherman Alexi, Dorothea Brande, George Saunders and Lance Olsen are a handful of the writers I discovered. All have affected my own writing, but after reading many works from Carver, McCann and Díaz, I mostly saw the valued change they provided for my craft. After reading Carver 's collection of short stories, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, I was very intrigued. Mostly because the uniqueness of Carver 's writing was so immediate. It is simplified, but the ideas and meanings are complex. I became influenced by these implied messages and his work drove me to question literature and what it’s meant to do. Stories have themes and certain arguments, but who says they need to make sense all of the time? Who says simplicity can’t breed complexity? Meanwhile, writers like McCann and Díaz oppose Carver and have also influenced my writing with their persistent styles and themes. Unlike Carver 's short and simple sentence structure, their works feature long, beautiful prose that describes people, feelings, places and things in new ways. Although

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