From Foes To Soulmates

Dear Author, I'm a big admirer of your writing! After reading your book, I was blown away by your talent. I have some ideas on how to take your book to the next level and expand its readership. Would you be willing to listen to my feedback and suggestions?

Protector of his lands, his women, his family.

Only shooting stars break the mold

Hello

The majority of literature courses at the high-school level (and college, for that matter) are one semester in length, which makes it difficult to teach a novel. When curricula calls for the instructor to cover a certain number of authors and/or literary movements in a given course, devoting several weeks to one book is often impractical, if not impossible. Furthermore, the reluctancy of young readers to tackle a whole novel makes including one even more of a challenge. Yet the occasional longer work, something in between the short story and short novel, can be worthwhile for both teacher and student. Often, these in-between texts offer the concentrated plot line of the story coupled with increased character development and use of imagery/symbolism. These length fictions frequently have what novelist and scholar John Gardner called "an almost oriental purity. . . [an] elegant tracing of an emotional line" (183). There are several excellent pieces of writing which fall into this literary no-man's land -- some well-known, others not -- but finding them is often made difficult by book publishers who masquerade these briefer works as full-blown novels.

"Goodnight," he says.

Class> None

After listening to the words of Erza I let out a sigh of relief that he has not changed