the first drafts of my whirlwind love affair with contemporary literature.

It wasn't until extremely recently that I've had an opportunity to sit down with contemporary works. I spent most of my time in high school pouring over things made before even my parents were born, and--I believe--the most modern authors I ever had on a reading list were Fitzgerald and Hemingway. This summer I had some time to sit down with some different works by Palahniuk as well as Jonathan Safran Foer's first major novel Everything is Illuminated. I really enjoyed the more modern tone that I could find in those books, and of books written in the same genre, though from an earlier generation, by Charles Bukowski.
While I think that modern authors often sacrifice some of the most concrete facets of writing in order to apply their new styles, I've found the new styles intriguing for the nuances alone. I think that the new styles being used today allow for writers to be more unique with their writing styles, and--as such--they are able to be more true to the art and message they are attempting to convey.

-Howe