| Summary: |
"James Rahn has led the Rittenhouse Writers' Group since he founded it in 1988, making it one of America's longest-running independent fiction workshops. Hundreds of writers and would-be writers have sought out the group for its remarkable level of instruction and collaboration. Rittenhouse Writers is Rahn's memoir of the workshop and how his own evolution as both a teacher and a writer-has been intertwined with the establishment and growth of the RWG. In addition, Rahn includes ten short stories written by current and former members of the workshop. Rahn's struggle to perfect his role as instructor runs throughout the narrative, as does his effort to balance that role with the friendships he forms in the group, and to keep up with his own writing while still giving the group the attention it needs to flourish. Through his eyes, we catch the spark of the workshop's spirit and get to meet various spirits who have invigorated Rittenhouse Writers' Group. Rahn cuts back and forth, reflecting, not only on the workshop, but also on his days as a high school dropout in Atlantic City, dead-end jobs and hopeless moves, the difficulty of his mother's decline and death, and his own unexpected plunge into parenthood-when, at age 51, he and his wife took on the responsibility of raising her two young nieces. His memoir serves, in a way, as an introduction to the short stories that follow; and the stories-as surprising and varied as the writers Rahn describes working with-stand as a fitting coda to Rahn's tale and offer another window onto his life's work. The 10 short stories included in Rittenhouse Writers: "On Fire" by Gwen Florio "Mother-6/7 Months" by Romnesh Lamba "Moon Penitent" by Diane McKinney-Whetstone "The Last Confession" by Tom Teti "Ivory Is Wrong About Me" by Caren Litvin "The Conference Rat" by Samantha Gillison "Dropping a Line into the Murky Chop" by Saral Waldorf "What She Missed" by Lisa Paparone "Kingdom of the Sun" by Alice Schell "The Letters of Hon. Crawford G. Bolton III" by Daniel R. Biddle. James Rahn has published stories in many literary magazines, taught for fifteen years at the University of Pennsylvania, and has an MFA in Writing from Columbia University. His first novel, Bloodnight, was published in 2012"-- |
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