Victoria Patterson’s novel Death to the Novel is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. The Secret Habit of Sorrow, a collection of short stories, was published in 2018. The critic Michael Schaub wrote: “There’s not a story in the book that’s less than great; it’s a stunningly beautiful collection by a writer working at the top of her game.” Her novel The Little Brother, which Vanity Fair called “a brutal, deeply empathetic, and emotionally wrenching examination of American male privilege and rape culture,” was published in 2015. She is also the author of the novels The Peerless Four and This Vacant Paradise, a 2011 New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Her story collection, Drift, was a finalist for the California Book Award and the Story Prize and was selected as one of the best books of 2009 by the San Francisco Chronicle.
MFA in English, University of California, Riverside
I encourage students to develop the habit of writing in a way that is not intimidating. Writing in a journal is a good way to become comfortable on the page, which develops voice. I believe developing an individual voice is essential. I hope my students not only become comfortable on paper, but also discover the release that can come from it. At the same time, writing is a common practice and the commonness can make it seem easy, familiar, not requiring special effort or craft. Writing is about crafting sentences and building them into paragraphs and building paragraphs into narratives. I focus on the tools of craft and the discipline and perseverance required to hone those skills.
The Secret Habit of Sorrow
The Little Brother
The Peerless Four
This Vacant Paradise
Drift