dis/lit

As some of you know, while writing my major paper on The Wedding of Tom to Tom, I stumbled upon Keith Banner’s Facebook page, and sent him an email telling him how much I liked his short-story, letting him know about our course, and directing him to this blog. At his request, I thought I would share his correspondence with me.

His initial response: Wow. I love when this happens. It does not happen a lot, of course, but that story has a few fans, and truthfully it’s one of my own faves of what I’ve written. So glad you are “using it.” Thanks so much for your kind words and I look forward to reading your paper… Keith

Then last Wednesday: Amanda, someone sent me a link to your paper about my story. Just out of blue I read it yesterday. Wrote this blog about it. Thank you so much and please relay the thanks to your prof and other students… Keith

Here’s is the link to the blog he wrote about the experience of reading my paper: http://twoplustwoequalsfive-tskyinc.blogspot.com/2010/11/tom-tom-bliss.html

He apparently was very touched by my analysis, but also was impressed with what we’ve been doing as a class.
Here’s an excerpt from the blog-post that also acknowledges the monologue project!

A true example of 2 + 2 = 5: me the writer writing something wholeheartedly dedicated to reinventing the way people view characters with developmental disabilities in literature, and ten years later a writer takes what I did and gives it back to me fully reinvigorated. Wow. Another example on the same blog is four students in the class creating monologues based on some of the characters in my story that I did not give a lot of voice and agency to. Reading those monologues made me cry too.
Maybe I’m just some overemotional freak (well wait a minute: yes I am that), but also I think that this is probably a pretty normal thing that happens to writers all the time. This is just my first time. It was Amanda and the other students’ thoroughness that got me.
Thanks to ENGL 375A2 at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia…