Sunday, January 07, 2007

Amy Hempel is wonderful

For those of you who have never read her stuff, I highly recommend it. She writes short stories, some of them only a paragraph in length. But she has that talent, that ability to pack so much meaning into so few well-chosen words, that I only wish I had. She inspires me to try.

4 comments:

Molly said...

I agree. I fell in love with the first story I read, "The Harvest." I have had some touble finding her story collections, though. Some have gone out of print. I hear, thanks to Chuck Palahniuk, her work is making a comeback. It's good to have fanboys.

Erica said...

I confess, I first came to know Amy through Chuck, who I find phenomenal. A little off-kilter, but phenomenal. I liked "The Harvest" too - and most of the rest of her stuff.

Welcome - Go Vandals! (I'm a '96 alum) - and hope to see more from you!

BookMan said...

Yeah, Amy Hempel is great. Very respected in literary circles. Ironically, she was one of those writers who--for some time--was more of a "writer's writer" and suffered from relatively little "popular" exposure. Glad to see she's being read by good readers who love books and not just critics.

Oh, and I think Molly may have been a student of mine. Possible, perhaps.

Molly said...

You got me. I am a former student. However, if you read my blog, you are not one of the instructors I was bitching about. I got the impression that you actually cared about learning and teaching. Keep it up, your students will appreciate it.