hi...this is Emma I forgot to post something too. oops.
I was a little surprised by Alexie's very informal talk, but after thinking about the small amount of his work we read in class, it kind of made sense that his speaking style would be similarly straightforward and casual. I found his speech engaging and funny, which was probably his main goal in talking to a huge group of college students, but I liked that he also put in some interesting opinions on being a writer. His theme of empathy was interesting especially in the way he related it to writing, saying that a lot of writers don't have as much empathy as they should and writing is something of an unempathetic act. (I think a lot about a line in one of Alison Bechdel's books where she says that writers don't have "normal human ethics.") I think his not revealing what was in the card he read was kind of going against that fact, doing something that technically is a "bad" way to tell a story but that is really the morally right thing to do.
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