Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres

by Marcela Sulak, Jacqueline Kolosov

Overview

When we talk about hybrid literary genres, what do we mean? Unprecedented in both its scope and approach, Family Resemblance is the first anthology to explore the answer to that question in depth, providing craft essays and examples of hybrid forms by 43 distinguished authors. In this study of eight hybrid genres—including lyric essay, epistolary, poetic memoir, prose poetry, performative, short-form nonfiction, flash fiction, and pictures made of words—the family tree of hybridity takes delightful shape, showcasing how cross-genre works blend features from multiple literary parents to create new entities, forms that feel more urgent than ever in today's increasingly heterogeneous landscape. Introductions and an afterword discuss the importance and current popularity of hybridity in literature and culture and offer methods for teaching hybrid works. Intended for both scholarly and general readers, this seminal collection sparkles with inventiveness and creative zeal—an essential guidebook to a developing field.

FEATURING ESSAYS AND HYBRID WORK FROM: Kazim Ali, Susanne Paola Antonetta, Andrea Baker, Jennifer Bartlett, Mira Bartók, Jenny Boully, Julie Carr, Katie Cortese, Nick Flynn, Sarah Gorham, Arielle Greenberg, Carol Guess, Terrance Hayes, Robin Hemley, Takashi Hiraide, Tung-Hui Hu, Mark Jarman, A. Van Jordan, Etgar Keret, Joy Ladin, Miriam Libicki, Bret Lott, Stan Mack, Sabrina Orah Mark, Brenda Miller, Ander Monson, Maggie Nelson, Amy Newman, Gregory Orr, Julio Ortega, Jena Osman, Kathleen Ossip, Pamela Painter, Craig Santos Perez, Khadijah Queen, David Shields, Mary Szybist, Sarah Vap, Patricia Vigderman, Julie Marie Wade, Diane Wakoski, Joe Wenderoth, Rachel Zucker

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781941628027
Publisher:	Rose Metal Press
Publication date:	11/04/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Marcela Sulak is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Decency (Black Lawrence Press, 2015), and her essays have appeared in The Iowa Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Rattle, and various anthologies. She's translated four collections of poetry: Orit Gidali from Israel, Karel Hynek Mácha and K. J. Erben from Hapsburg Bohemia, and Mutombo Nkulu-N'Sengha from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some of these have been performed in the Prague National Theater and in Warsaw, and have been used as subtitles for films. She is an editor at The Ilanot Review and Tupelo Quarterly, and hosts the weekly radio podcast "Israel in Translation" at TLV.1. She directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University outside of Tel Aviv, where she teaches American literature, hybridity, documentary poetics, prosody, and literary translation.

Jacqueline Kolosov holds degrees in English from the University of Chicago (BA, MA) and New York University (PhD), and works as a professor of English at Texas Tech University. She has published three poetry collections, among them Memory of Blue (Salmon, 2014), and five novels for teens, including A Sweet Disorder (Hyperion, 2009) and Paris, Modigliani & Me (Luminis Books, 2015). The recipient of a Literary Fellowship in Prose from the National Endowment for the Arts, her essays, stories, poems, and hybrid works have been published in such journals as The Sewanee Review, Poetry, and Prairie Schooner. Originally from Chicago, she lives in West Texas with her husband, the poet William Wenthe, and their daughter, as well as three intrepid dogs, a curious cat, and a Spanish mare who keeps her fully grounded in the present.

Editorial Reviews

09/28/2015
In this densely packed anthology, Sulak and Kolosov have undertaken the ambitious project of creating a taxonomy of hybrid literary forms. The editors, both writers and teachers, have identified eight evolving genres—lyric essay, epistolary writing, poetic memoir, prose poetry, performative writing, short-form nonfiction, flash fiction, and “pictures made of words”—and for each genre have recruited five or six writers to share excerpts of their work, accompanied by a brief introduction. One challenge of the hybrid form is defining it. In the preface and afterword, respectively provided by Sulak and Kolosov, as well as in Susanne Paoloa Antonetta’s introduction, questions of classification are thoughtfully debated, but to little end: the distinctions among the different genres remain troublingly vague. Sulak and Kolosov have assembled a mighty collection of essayists and poets, including Maggie Nelson, Terrance Hayes, Etgar Keret, Nick Flynn, and David Shields, and their insights into their own creative processes give the book its value. However, the anthology’s ambition limits its effectiveness; with 43 authors and 11 introductory and supplementary essays on genre and hybridity, the book feels claustrophobic, and the individual selections have little room to breathe. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

“Sulak and Kolosov have assembled a mighty collection of essayists and poets, including Maggie Nelson, Terrance Hayes, EtgarKeret, Nick Flynn, and David Shields, and their insights into their own creative processes give the book its value.” PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“Family Resemblance is an extraordinarily rich anthology, intelligently conceived and artfully arranged--full of essential readings that offer clarity while keeping alive the mystery of the hybrid form.”LIA PURPURA

“If there is one way to contain all that hybrid texts can be, this book does it. With open arms, FamilyResemblancebrings together video, napkins, electrons the size of gnats, Hot Wheels, Yvor Winters, Laura Petrie, chess, homebirth, the color blue, a guy named Jason, a woman named Mary, Santa Claus, Malcolm X, card catalogues, perfect heavens, graphics, and maps. The plentitude of subjects embodies the plentitude of form. This book creates its own hybrid, binding discourses, making them snap with electricity.”NICOLE WALKER

“Family Resemblance is one of those all-too-rare literary anthologies that’s as informative for contemporary writers and their readers as it is for students learning about contemporary writers. Surprise, risk, the energy of the new; the work collected here engages literary history while doing things that have never been done, and readers will take away a broader sense of creative possibilities in writing.” MARK WALLACE

From the Publisher