Presenter(s): Sophia Mick—Humanities
Faculty Mentor(s): Will Alden
Session 4: Let’s KIDD Around: KIDD Creative Writing Program
How do you get a reader to happily believe that your character’s husband has turned into an ape? Or that your narrator has developed a concerning but largely unimportant ability to fly? Why? Magical realism is often distinguished from other literary genres with a definition, however malleable, along these lines: a realistic narrative with surreal elements . These surreal elements are what fascinate me . This essay explores, on the micro scale, how understatement and detail help craft the suspension of disbelief necessary in the creation of magical realism, and on a macro scale, what magical realism means, both the term itself and the implications it has for author and reader . My research is composed of a close analysis of the micro techniques in works by authors Aimee Bender, Joseph O’Neill and Karen Russell, analysis of craft essays by Russell and Alice Munro, and a brief look at some of my own writing through the lens of Bret Anthony Johnston’s “Don’t Write What You Know .” As a lover of the magically real, I intend to examine and explain the literary craft of convincing magical realism and hopefully, to grasp at some understanding of why anyone would, or should, write it at all .