Introduction

We will be examining writers working in a range of genres from Irvin Yalom (psychological case study) to Truman Capote (short story). We will focus on the use of language and the clear exchange of ideas as well as how to get published by a professional and/or academic journal or how to produce a successful book proposal.

This week we will explore your publishing aims and how to achieve them. We will answer the following questions: should academic authors use “I” and “we”? should authors use specialist terminology? Should the author be present in the writing? Should articles and theses follow a conventional structure or are experimental structures permitted?

You will be tasked with analysing an article you like or don’t like. What are the aspects of each which draw you in or push you away?

This week's reading will be Sword, chapters 1 - 3, pages 3 – 31.

James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son.

Crafting a public voice.

Voice is never a matter of neutral tones. We are articulating our experiences by exploring our identity and how versions of the past can shape and construct the present. James Baldwin has always elaborated an understanding of identity over the course of his career as a writer. Throughout his life he emphasized a multiplicity of identity and thought that the classification of individual by race, class, gender, and sexuality was dehumanizing. His aim was to counter the taxonomy of identity.

Critics have pointed out that the highly personal voice in which Baldwin addresses his readers was crucial to his success. Voice is the quality of text that lends it its social power. Think about how your voice has to do with who you are.

This week, you will be tasked with taking a section from Notes of a Native Son and analysing it. What nouns does he use? Verbs? Parts of speech?

This week's reading will be Sword, chapters 4 and 5, pages 35 – 62.

Willa Cather’s Neighbor Rosicky.

Both in corporate and academic life the emotions are sidelined, dismissed, discouraged, and considered problematic. Working with them is unknown, unchartered territory. Yet, if we attend to the area of emotion in crafting our work, we can transform the way we express ourselves. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Hershel once remarked that “all creative thinking comes with an encounter with the unknown.”

“Neighbor Rosicky” exemplifies how style can create a distinct emotional response in a reader. Style is distinct from correctness because it is not concerned with observing the contentions of language but with choosing sentence structures and word choices that produce graceful, clear writing. There is no such thing as writing without style. Even technical documents which are erroneously considered style-less can be written with style. We all make stylistic decisions in our writing.

Look at Cather’s figurative devices. What does she personify in this story and why? How could you use personification in academic writing?

This week's reading will be Sword, chapter 9, pages 99 – 111.

Willa Cather’s Ardessa.

Cather’s subtle depiction of office politics affords deep insights into an environment that has changed very little in the past hundred years. The politics of the office in which Ardessa is employed are at root indistinguishable from those that govern many contemporary organisations. Politics are unalterable because they are engrained in human nature.

An understanding of the conflicts in Cather’s own life, which are distilled symbolically in her narrative and among which her relationship with the larger-than-life publisher Samuel McClure feature prominently, offers enhanced interpretive purchase on “Ardessa”.

Reading and engaging with the story will help us to craft our own writing paying particular attention to the problem of “jargonitis.”

Print out one page of your academic writing and deconstruct it, paying particular attention to issues of clarity, coherence, sentence structure, precision, and verb constructions.

This week's reading will be Sword, chapter 10, pages 111 – 121.

John Cheever’s The Swimmer.

The Swimmer is underscored by craft and artistry. It is mysterious and ambiguous, surrealistic, and mythic. Good communication is invariably predicated on an awareness of one’s voice, being precise and being precise about articulating one’s position. Since the personal dimension has such a significant influence on one’s position, it is inappropriate to publish an argument or take a position unless you tell your story.

Memory plays a crucial role in exploring our roots and in our identity. Cheever has a way of encapsulating random thoughts which is how our memory works. He reported that his journal writing was a way of refreshing his memory: we can learn a lot from his habit of keeping a journal (“no impression should go to waste”).

Metaphor, as well, is key to the creative process: its role is to get the readers’ attention. We need metaphor because our minds are always searching for comparisons in order to describe a complex object, idea, or phenomenon. They are superb writing tools because they are “layered” and are literally a device for carrying meaning.

This week, you will be tasked with examining an extended metaphor in The Swimmer and then create something similar for an aspect of your profession.

This week's reading will be Sword, chapter 11, Structural Designs, pages 122 – 134.

Irvin Yalom’s The Fat Lady.

Yalom’s Love’s Executioner (1989) is a collection of ten absorbing tales by psychotherapist Irvin Yalom who uncovers the mysteries, frustration, pathos, and humor at the heart of the therapeutic encounter. He gives us a rare glimpse into his clients’ personal desires and motivations, but he also tells his own story, allowing his humanity to enter the equation. He uses case study as a storytelling springboard for contemplating some of the largest and most perennial human questions. He explores the human question of how to live.

In this session, we look at elements of The Fat Lady that make it work, including attention to detail, unflinching self-exploration, a revelation of the mechanics of one’s practice, using questions in a targeted manner, revealing biases, relating one’s problem-solving techniques, and emphasizing reflexivity in the text.

Reflect on the following: what is the main point of your project? Who is your intended audience? What research question do you aim to answer? What contribution does your research make to theory? To practice? What is your overarching argument?

This week's reading will be Sword, chapter 13, pages 147 – 158.

William Styron’s Darkness Visible.

In 1989 Darkness Visible, Styron’s account of his descent into the depths of clinical depression, appeared in Vanity Fair. The piece revealed in unsparing detail how Styron’s lifelong melancholy gave way to a seductive urge to end his own life. A few months later, he released the essay as a book. The response from readers was unprecedented. Thousands of letters came in – he had really touched a nerve. No one to date had offered the kind of report Styron had given to the public: a firsthand account of what it is like to have a monstrous condition overtake someone.

Darkness Visible was recognized as ushering in a new kind of literary genre known as “mood memoir.” Such memoirs have distinctive features such as “narrative based responses to rhetorical exclusion.” Medical humanists call them “illness narratives.” Styron’s mood memoir can be seen as a case study of how depressed persons frame their suffering as an inability to express such suffering meaningfully to non-depressed others. He insists that language is inadequate for expressing the suffering of depression.

In this session we look at how to create a text of observation. We focus here on wisdom and self-knowledge.

This week, you will write a poem about your research. It can be anything from a confessional poem about your own scholarly struggles, to a series of haiku about your research subject.

This week's reading will be Sword, Afterword, pages 173 – 175.

Truman Capote’s Music for Chameleons.

Famous for In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's, Capote was known as a literary celebrity back in the 1960s and 70s. He was noted for creating individuals who are vividly present, and his stories provoke powerful emotions. With great writers such as Capote, we are in the hands of skilled adjudicators of human emotions who take a scalpel to a fictional relationship, revealing to us its glorious complexity. His stories offer us a detailed study of emotion.

Although Capote wouldn’t term himself as a post-modernist writer, the term certainly encompasses features of his work such as the complex, uncertain, and shifting waters of identity. The post-modern highlighting of notions of truth, objectivity, and authority being contested appear to describe much of Capote’s fiction, and these powerful portrayals of the post-modern predicament can help engage readers in stimulating and enjoyable debates.

Capote’s characters come from all walks of life, and his fiction becomes a valuable resource for providing insights into how individuals from different cultural backgrounds make sense of their lives.

Choose one of Capote’s stories and analyse it as if you would do a book review – what are its strengths and weaknesses? How is it structured? What techniques are used to instil emotion in the reader? What do you notice about his word choice?

This week's reading will be Silvia's How to Write a Lot, and we will discuss the first half.

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat.

Known primarily for his tales of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe was a poet, journal editor, short story writer, and the inventor of the modern detective story with his tales of August Dupin who preceded Sherlock Holmes. His stories often probe the psychology of guilt, and with “The Black Cat,” we have the quintessential story of murder, violence, guilt, and secrecy, all told from the perspective of the unreliable narrator.

In this session, we will look at the vital role setting plays in writing. We will also look at answers to the following questions: does a setting help to disclose a character’s nature and should we think about the concept of “setting” in our academic work?

You will be tasked with comparing Capote’s and Poe’s stories of cats. Although written 150 years apart, they have many similarities which you should be able to identify. How can analysing these stories support your academic writing?

This week's reading will be Silvia's How to Write a Lot, and we will discuss the second half.

Bringing it all together.

Fiction can be a catalyst for imagining alternatives. It can help us to resolve even familiar problems as well as help us to examine our moral choices from alternative perspectives. In this final session, you will put one of the characters you have read about through his or her paces, either in a coaching session in a professional milieu or an imagined dialogue which resolves interpersonal conflict. This exercise can be seen as a starting point for helping others to view an issue from multiple perspectives and to invite productive dialogue.

This week's reading will be Eastman's Coaching for Professional Development, Introduction and Chapter 1.

Eastman, C. (2018) Coaching for Professional Development: Using Literature to Support Success. London: Routledge.

Silvia, P.J. (2018) How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing. American Psychological Association.

Sword, H. (2012) Stylish Academic Writing. Cambridge Ma: Harvard University Press.

Baldwin, J (2012) Notes of a Native Son. Boston: Beacon Press.

Capote, T. (2001) Music for Chameleons. New York: Penguin Classics.

Cather, W. (1989) Neighbor Rosicky. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Cather, W. (1989) Ardessa. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Cheever, J. (1990) Collected Stories: John Cheever. Intro by Hanif Kureishi. London: Vintage Classics.

Poe, E.A. (2016) The Selected Works of Edgar Allan Poe. London: William Collins.

Styron, W. (2001) Darkness Visible. A Memoir of Madness. New York: Vintage Classics.

Yalom, I. (2012) Love’s Executioner. New York: Basic Books.