Letters From Kelly

Whenever I teach Creative Nonfiction 101, I give my students a special assignment, a kind of show-and-tell for writers, to bring in a work of writing that moved them. Perhaps the most creative response came from the student who taught us a single word, saudade, a Portuguese term that is difficult to translate, meaning sadness tinged with yearning and a deep, penetrating ache. Continue reading “Love Letters”

Good news: Monsters are back.

There’s a new book out now by historian Leo Braudy tracing modern storytelling’s affair with monsters of all stripes, and a new movie titled simply, A Monster Calls. FX has ordered an eighth and ninth season of American Horror Story, which embraces the whole monster community. At the movies, we seem to finally be parting company with a long cycle of sexy vampires and hipster zombies, and turning to artisanal micro-brew monsters like M. Night Shyamalan’s new villain, a serial killer with no less than 23 personalities. Continue reading “Truth and Monsters”

Last year as the holidays loomed, the language geek in me got an early gift, when the Washington Post finally allowed using “they” as a singular pronoun, and then a national linguists’ association named the singular “they” its Word of the Year. Another thrilling season for language nerds may be upon us, because the stylebook editors are at it again. Continue reading “The Right Word”