Steve Almond: Short-Story Writer and Essayist

I was so impressed by Steve Almond’s work last night. Not just his writing, but his presentation too. I loved how informal it was. I thought the way he presented his work fit well into the messages he was trying to convey. While a lot of his material was witty, I was most impressed by the underlying messages, particularly in “Skull.” I thought it was ingenious how he went about carrying his message just through conversation and let the reader come up with their own assumptions and then he clarified the message through a character’s words. I’ve never come across a piece of literature that effectively conveyed how every human that ever existed just wants to be loved with all of their faults. This story was just an exaggeration of what all of us feel while we attempt to hide the scars we’ve been facing our entire lives, just hoping that one day someone will love us and love those scars because they are part of us. I can’t think of a better or more accurate representation of this feeling. Despite the hair raising feeling of envisioning an empty eye socket, that’s sometimes what it takes to shock a reader into understanding. How can you not envision what he is saying? What’s so powerful about it is that he doesn’t describe how people or things look where his characters are. He describes emotion, awkwardness, desire and hope. It’s effective because while you can very clearly envision the scene, he offers little distinguishing details that would prevent a reader from putting themselves into the same situation. 

To me, Steve Almond presented himself less as an author, less like a presenter and more like a person. Everything he said was real and applicable to everyone and it takes so much experience and attention to write about something that most people will experience in their lives and still allow everyone to comprehend, relate to, and experience within the literature. Even though these stories were not about his personal experiences, you can hear in his voice that he’s lived this stories in his mind over and over and feels what his characters do. These characters may be fictional, but they exist in all of us. We all have a piece of the girl with a missing eye within us, that’s the part of us that carries a scar we long to have loved along with the rest of us. We all have a piece of Zach, who cares deeply for someone with flaws and accepts those flaws, visible or not. And we all have a piece of the narrator, the person who’s afraid to hear the awkwardness, dying of curiosity and longing for something similar to walk into our lives, no matter what challenges accompany it. 

This lecture was truly inspiring. I wish I could put my feelings and stories into a piece of literature the way he does, leaving a resonating “somebody gets it” feeling with the readers, or in this case, listeners. To me, literature is dangerous. I don’t perceive the world around me the way he does, and for that I am envious. For me, writing just uncovers things I wish would stay buried in the back of my mind. Steve Almond is not afraid to go into the dark corners of our lives and really pull out emotion, good or bad. That’s truly fearless.