C.J. Hribal: Go Little Book: Obsession in General and the Novella in Particular (January 2014)

As writers, we often worry about not repeating ourselves, yet many wonderful writers return repeatedly to the same essential material. Hribal’s lecture extols the virtues of obsession, and offers a paean to the novella, a narrative form which allows writers to embody their inner obsessive. Among those texts discussed are Andre Dubus’s “We Don’t Live Here Anymore,” and Jane Smiley’s “Ordinary Love” and “The Age of Grief.”