exlibrislarsen

Dark River Press has accepted one of my short stories called “Crybaby Bridge,” about a family curse and a haunted bridge (you knew a bridge had to figure into it somewhere). I wrote the story as an exemplar for my American literature students while I was teaching a unit on romanticism, including the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The assignment I gave my classes was to write a short story that included three of the five thematic categories of romanticism:

1. Individualism
2. Intuition vs. Reality
3. Love of Nature/Exotic Settings
4. Nationalism & the Past
5. Supernatural Elements

My students were then supposed to highlight these characteristics using preassigned colors. It was probably the most fun I had with a writing assignment. It was my hope that my classes felt the same way, but in retrospect, I should have given them a few other options as their assessment for the unit. Oh well…

“Crybaby Bridge” will be published in Dark River Press in issue #3 this June.

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