Some background:
Twenty years ago, I went through a phase of manic reading, several novels a week for a year and well beyond. (More about this another time.) Reading so many novels in a relatively short period of time, one starts to notice things, so for the MFA program, I put together a class about my observations.
That class lead to a series of classes about the formal structure of novels. About which, one of my beloved colleagues and I have conversed frequently over the past two decades. And in a few weeks, she and I will record a conversation for the MFA summer residency.
I’ll rehearse some of that here.