Elegies for Uncanny Girls
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Many of the stories create large interior landscapes for their characters to dwell and dream inside. Some characters, such as Winona, are very at home in these landscapes, while some, such as Susan in “Center,” feel trapped or hindered by their inner dialogues. How do you experience the characters’ interiority? Do these spaces of interior narration feel isolating, claustrophobic, enriching, revelatory? How do these moments function in relation to the more external moments of dialogue and action? How does the interiority function in relation to the unreal elements in the stories, such as a mother’s split wrists, Dora’s partial invisibility, and the big little lady’s shifts in size? Does the interiority help the surreal moments feel real?
JENNIFER COLVILLE is the founding editor of PromptPress, a journal for visual art inspired by writing and writing inspired by visual art. Jennifer holds an MFA from Syracuse University and a PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Utah. She lives in Iowa City with her husband and two children.