” Lydia Davis

unmatched jigsaw puzzle pieces, in orange, blue, and green

Lydia Davis’s “Ethics” and the Instability of Logic

The short stories of Lydia Davis, in spite of their infamous brevity, often work on at least three levels. In the case of “Ethics,” a paragraph-long fiction that humorously interrogates the Golden Rule, the story works as a character study, a reductio ad absurdum argument, and a larger philosophical questioning.

The End of Things
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The End of Things

Popular opinion says that during the holiday season, people either fall in love or reflect on their past year of life. Sometimes they do both, but it’s hard to manage these conflicting actions at the same time. One is active, expressive, and outward moving. The other is passive, observational, and focused inward.

Grace Paley’s “Wants”: Activism and Civic Involvement for Writers

Grace Paley’s “Wants”: Activism and Civic Involvement for Writers

After years of dodging PTO meetings and volunteer opportunities, I became involved in a school overcrowding issue in my town because I didn’t want my children’s class sizes to become enormous. The problem seemed simple at first, but soon enough I was attending school committee meetings, spending hours writing emails, and holding forth at a…