31 Recommended Texts for The Rules are Myths

Some favorite contemporary texts to teach as examples of writing that defy traditional expectations by inventing their own

Below is a list of text used as examples for discussion of lessons with my workshop: The Rules are Myths - Six Mini Lectures.

Part 1: Undoing show don’t tell.
Part 2: Undoing Chekhov’s gun.
Part 3: Undoing concrete time and place.
Part 4: Undoing Gardner’s fictional dream.
Part 5: Undoing growth and revelation.
Part 6: Undoing write what you know.

Each of these texts invent their own world and are a great fuel for imagining the infinite possibilities of form and experience through language. Feel free to drop your favorite formbreakers in the comments.

Noelle Revaz, With The Animals

Oisin Curran, Mopus

William Gass, Omensetter’s Luck

Stanley Crawford, Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine

Jane Unrue, Love Hotel

Hilda Hilst, The Obscene Madame D

Barry Hannah, Ray

Mathias Enard, Zone

Samanta Schweblin, Fever Dream

David Ohle, Motorman

John Keane, Counternarratives

Gert Jonke, Geometric Regional Novel

Joyelle McSweeney, Flet

Kobo Abe, The Face of Another

Brian Evenson, The Wavering Knife

Clarice Lispector, The Passion According to GH

Claude Simon, Triptych

Dennis Cooper, The Marbled Swarm

Amos Tutuola, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Geraldine Kim, Povel

Wayne Koestenbaum, Moira Orfei in Aigues Mortes

Nathanael, Feder

Vi Khi Nao, Fish in Exile

Alice Notley, The Descent of Alette

Harry Mathews, The Journalist

Thomas Bernhard, Correction

Harmony Korine, A Crackup at the Race Riots

B.S. Johnson, Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry

Vanessa Place, Dies: A Sentence

Ariana Reines, The Cow

Javier Marias, Dark Back of Time