Remembering What You Love About English

Local author Midge Raymond will be reading from her short fiction collection, Forgetting English, at 7 p.m. on June 9 at the University Book Store. This event is free.

Forgetting English is a wonderfully written, powerful compilation of short stories. After reading it, we're not surprised at all that the collection was the winner of the prestigious Spokane Prize for Short Fiction in 2007. Raymond explains that Forgetting English was written over a period of five years. She says, "I began putting the collection together after noticing a theme emerging...that of Americans traveling abroad, discovering themselves in ways not possible while on their home turf."

And yes, that is the gist of it in a nutshell, though there's so much more to be discovered. Raymond's stories do take place in many corners of the world that most may never get to see for themselves, but it always comes back to the main characters and their stories. Their exotic locations act instead as a graceful backdrop, alluding to the fact that they have left their homes to travel abroad for a reason--whether it is to find themselves, or run away from problems that have become too big for them to solve, or to come to terms with their issues and insecurities, all while blending in to a foreign land and just becoming another face among the masses, finally giving themselves some much-needed peace.

Forgetting English has an incredibly calming tone throughout, regardless of what is happening in the moment. The rhythm of Raymond's writing reminds us of closing our eyes and listening to the ocean; or, as how we read it recently during the heat wave, it reminded us of falling asleep to the fan methodically whirring away--it's melodic and easing, even at its most dramatic points. This is something rare and wonderful, and as a writer, it's so nice to read a collection of short stories that is refreshing in both ideas and descriptions, something that reminds you of just exactly why you love to write, and most of all, just exactly how much you love to read.