Aimee Bender: "The Rememberer" and "Quiet, Please"

Have fun with these stories.

Junot Diaz: "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie" and "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"

To house your creative responses.

David Foster Wallace, "Forever Overhead" and "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, No. 40"

Nothing I could write would do justice to DFW.  Maybe your creative responses to his work will.

George Saunders: "The Barber's Unhappiness" and "I CAN SPEAK!"

Up for cultural satire, anyone?  If so, you're in for a treat.

Stacey Richter: "Beauty Treatment" and "Cavemen in the Hedges"

Lorrie Moore: "People Like That" and "How to Become a Writer"

Danielle Evans: BEFORE YOU SUFFOCATE YOUR OWN FOOL SELF

Danielle Evans will give a reading in Isaacs Auditoriuim, Susquehanna University, on November 7, 2011 at 7:30pm.  What do you think she might have read before and during the process of writing stories in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self?  How does she chart new ground in the collection?  As she is the youngest writer we'll read this semester, I'm asking you to put yourself in her shoes and ponder the encounters with literature and literary voices that might have influenced her and her craft.  Be creative and far-reaching in your answer.