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Kim Drew Wright

Goodreads Author

Born

April 23

Website

http://www.kimdrewwright.com

Twitter

KimDrewWright

Genre

Contemporary, Poetry, Historical Fiction

Member Since

January 2009

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/kimdrewwright

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Kim Drew Wright is an award-winning writer with fiction and poetry published internationally by over a dozen literary journals and organizations, including, The Pinch, The Milo Review, Sixfold, and in an anthology, What We Carry Home. She graduated in journalism from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and enjoyed a career in advertising. She currently resides in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and three children. The Strangeness of Men is her debut collection.

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What’s the best thing about being a writer?

Kim Drew Wright Cheetos and Crown & Coke. Oh, wait...When an idea takes on life of its own and you are almost not even there, while at the same time right in the thic…moreCheetos and Crown & Coke. Oh, wait...When an idea takes on life of its own and you are almost not even there, while at the same time right in the thick of it and sweaty and insanely happy that the words are flowing. Then you edit and tweak. Again and again. And again. Then you read it back and find a couple spots that have meaning on multiple levels that you added with intention, then find a couple more spots with meaning you didn't even realize were in there - it just happened organically. Well, that's all good...but then you hitch up your pants, cinch your belt, show you're brave by handing it to a reader - and another human being laughs, or cries, or is reminded of a time in their life that had special meaning to THEM...well that is gold.(less)

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What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Kim Drew Wright First, take a deep breath.

Second, I am convinced writing short stories is the best way to learn craft. You can afford to try different techniques with…moreFirst, take a deep breath.

Second, I am convinced writing short stories is the best way to learn craft. You can afford to try different techniques without killing two years. Hone your skills by knocking out a short story instead of hunkering over the keyboard with a great idea for the beginning of a novel-length manuscript, getting bogged down in the middle and shoving it in a drawer because "something just isn’t working."

Short stories are like the poetry of novel writing. They have to capture you up front and propel you through, but they also need to leave you with a certain feeling about the piece. There’s no time for lengthy exposition. Get to the stakes quick. Build tension to a satisfying payoff for the reader. A well-crafted short story creates world, story, and character all in the first page. It’s flash fiction with meat, a novel on Nutra-Slim. Here are a few short stories that made me fall in love with the genre, and how each can specifically improve your writing skills.

1. Tobias Wolff ‘s “Bullet in the Brain” – We should not like the irritable, jaded protagonist. The humor jutted up against horror pulls us through, and then the touching flashbacks at the end give him a humanity and universality. We are there with him on that bank floor, that baseball field. Nancy Zafris from Kenyon Review handed this story out in a workshop. For the following two years I wrote linked short stories all triggered from this one. I don’t recommend you write a collection where the majority of your characters die! I’m still trying to work it out so the collection holds together, and hope to publish it sometime next year. But, that’s what a great short story can do – stick with you as a reader and give you an example to emulate as a writer.

2. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “A Private Experience” in That Thing Around Your Neck – Adichie’s use of flash forwards is masterful in this story. She effortlessly switches time to show us what’s going to happen because of the situation the characters are in, and then pulls us right back into the present story. It is a great technique to learn. Her juxtaposition of characters makes for automatic tension and meaning in this tale.

3. Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” or “Good Country People” – The queen of short story, O’Connor can spin a web of details that go beyond the ordinary. Her worlds tend to be in expected normalcy, and then she throws the unexpected at you – a murderer of old ladies, a fake bible salesman. Her stories are true classics of the form, and she builds characters wonderfully.

4. George Saunders’ “Sea Oak” – If O’Connor has ordinary worlds, Saunders has the complete opposite. This story focuses around a zombie aunt of a man who works for tips from ladies at a joint called Joysticks. It’s just plain fun and kooky. You can practically see the smirk on Saunders’ face as you read. Follow his lead, don’t be afraid to play with worlds and go extreme. That’s part of the beauty of the form. Where a novel might be too long for a reader to stay with you in a crazy, unexpected world, the short story is the perfect length to go outlandish.

5. Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” – One of my favorite short stories. This one is so creepy, even though she only hints at the horror. Her description of Arnold Friend is so bizarre, and, yet she gathered the idea from a news story of a serial killer, The Pied Piper of Tucson, who stuffed his boots and wore makeup to attract his victims. That’s another reason to utilize the short story form – it can give you an outlet to follow those wacky ideas that pop up. If a story jumps into your lap, jot it down. Dwell on the idea for a few days and then write it. Read and revise it. Have others critique it; after all, it’s a short story, so they can focus on the entirety of it and give feedback more readily. The ability to focus on the entirety of a story is gold for an improving writer, in order to hone each aspect that goes into creating an excellent story no matter what length.

I know a talented writer with an MFA who’s been working on the same short story for years. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you’re still completing other pieces at the same time and not just stuck. Perhaps, that’s the greatest gift of the form – learning when a whole story is complete, and being able to let it go to be shared.(less)

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Kim Drew Wright’s books

Average rating: 4.33 · 21 ratings · 5 reviews · 1 distinct work

The Strangeness of Men

4.33 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 2015 — 3 editions

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Kim Drew Wright's Blog

The Strangeness of Men Wins a Silver IPPY Award!

Success Does Not (Necessarily) Mean Sales My book has not been selling well. It sits on Amazon, Smashwords, IngramSpark, and many other databases ready to be printed and mailed or downloaded. I have zero desire to promote it via book signings and hitting the pavement, trying to chat up book store managers (not that either of those strategies are bad or that I won't do Read more of this blog post »

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Published on April 14, 2016 11:11

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Kim is Currently Reading

Kim Wright is currently reading

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

by Elizabeth Gilbert (Goodreads Author)

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Jan 26, 2016 08:00AM

Kim Wright is currently reading

The Collected Stories

by Lorrie Moore

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Jan 26, 2016 08:00AM

Kim Wright is currently reading

You've Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe

by Ron Hansen

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Jan 26, 2016 07:58AM

Kim’s Quotes

“People are strange . . .”
― Jim Morrison

tags: drugs, strangeness, weirdness

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“You're the oddest person I've ever met, you couldn't get rid of me if you tried.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry

tags: odd-people, strangeness

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“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Case of Identity - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story

tags: fiction, invention, life, reality, strangeness, truth

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¡ POETRY ! — 22582 members — last activity Dec 24, 2025 01:37PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

James River Writers — 136 members — last activity Nov 18, 2013 06:54PM
Welcome to the official Goodreads page for James River Writers. JRW is a non-profit organization which builds community by connecting and inspiring wr ...more

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