Lynn Z. Bloom

Freshman Composition as a Middle-Class Enterprise.

[In good writing,] the words used should be the most expressive that the language affords, provided that they are the most generally understood. Nothing should be expressed in two words that can be as well expressed in one; . . . the whole should be as short as possible, consistent with clearness; . . summarily, it should be smooth, clear, and short, for the contrary qualities are displeasing. Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania Gazette, 2 August 1733

Academic Essays and the Vertical Pronoun

A bunch of us were sitting around on the porch of the House of Theory, enjoying the cool breeze, a glass of pinot grigio, and swapping stories in actual words—neither langue nor parole—of the good old bad old days. Cathy and Jane and Marianna and Alice. Phyllis, Nancy, Sandra, Susan. . . . Carolyn would’ve come but she was busy being Amanda. And many more, men too, coming out from the shadows now, into the sun. We had been laboring for long years in that stuffy house, trying to untangle miles of syntax, to define complex abstractions with other abstractions, tired of defending ourselves against interpellation, hegemony, erasure. We were missing Julia; hoping Gayatri, and Judith, too, would come out, but they remained inside. After our eyes, accustomed to the interior darkness, got used to the light that flooded the porch we realized—quelle horreur—that every last one of us was wearing black. As we tore off the turtlenecks, replacing them with pastels, prints, even plaids, in a swirl of fabrics (vive la différence!) we began to talk of the novels, poetry, nonfiction, not texts, we would read, the essays we would write. I could swear that Virginia, a mote in the middle distance, was proffering a platter of raspberries and angel food cake, sweetness and light.

A Complement of Collaborators: Bringing Private Memoirs to Public Life

ABSTRACT This essay focuses on the genesis, growth, development, editing, and publication process of memoirs in their life context. It demonstrates how the efforts of a full complement of collaborators, from editors to web designers—some conspicuous, others unobtrusive, but all significant—are necessary in bringing an autobiographical work to autonomous existence.

Boom! Manufacturing Memoir for the Popular Market

The key concepts of Boom! (gotta love that audacious exclamation point!) are efficiently embedded in its explosive title. Rak, a professor of English at the University of Alberta, analyses the outp...