Current Events Shorthand

          One of my writing teachers, June Gould, often told our class, not only to look to our inner thoughts and feelings when we are writing but also to look to the outside world. I have taken that advice to heart, and many of my linked stories are rooted in the happenings in the world at large. This is especially true because my stories span the years from 1941 and WWII up to 2012.

          There are so many events to chose from that impacted people during those years. After WWII there was the Korean War, Kennedy's assassination, the Civil Rights movement, Woodstock, Viet Nam, the Challenger, and of course, the defining event of this relatively new century--9/11.  I could go on and on. 

          While every story is rooted in the current events of the time, in some the event is more important than in others. In one a character's whole future revolves around getting to the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969.  In other stories it is a passing vignette: the character is reading a newspaper headline that shows him in a particular time and place.

           Placing the stories in the midst of current events, helps me to figure out what the characters are thinking and feeling and doing. None of us live in a vacuum. My characters live in the world at large and that world shapes the way they think and act, just like the events of 2012 shape me.  Putting the characters in a specific time and place tells the reader many things about them, without my saying it on the page.  It is a kind of current events shorthand.