Recently, I had the pleasure of writing a guest blog post for my friends at Stillhouse Press, a craft publisher which values working closely with emerging authors and putting out some pretty kick butt books.
Called “A Lesson in Tension,” my posts discusses a workshop I took with Leslie Pietrzyk, the author of This Angel on My Chest, the Drue Heinz Literature Prize-winning short story collection that centers around women whose husbands have died far too young. A few words from the post:
Invoking the hallmarks of Alfred Hitchcock, Pietrzyk gave the example of film: if the audience sees a group of people on a train and then it explodes, we are surprised, Pietrzyk said. However, if we watch a group of men playing cards on the train and beneath their seat, visible only to the audience, the bomb counts down the seconds, we are hooked, our hearts racing.
Click here to read the whole story–my thoughts on Pietrzyk’s wisdom and how I used it to improve my own writing.
I’d also recommend you read her short story (referenced in my post) called, “I am the Widow.”
Suzanne Rigdon 