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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Dillard say that she defines the life of the writer in Chapter 3?

2. What is the topic of an essay written by Dillard that she said she considers too obscure and too intellectual?

3. Thornton Wilder cited an unnamed writer of sonnets as saying only one line drops from where?

4. Where, in Washington State, did Dillard beg a cabin in which to write?

5. What kept the teakettle that Dillard used in a faculty lounge from whistling?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who was Paul Glenn?

2. How does a work in progress turn on its author, according to Dillard?

3. What does Dillard mean in Chapter 5 by 'Probe and search each object in a piece of art'?

4. How does Dillard say that she believes a writer must control his or her own energies in order to work?

5. What is ludicrous about the tea kettle in the faculty lounge of the university that Dillard wrote in?

6. Why does Dillard advise writers not to hoard a good idea for a later place in a book being written or for another book?

7. What did writers such as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Ralph Ellison, and Eudora Welty have in common when learning to write, according to Dillard?

8. The next-to-last sentence of Chapter 5 reads, 'Shall we go rowing again, we who believe we may indeed row off the edge and fall?' What does this refer to?

9. Why was a moth trying to gain altitude and ultimately drowning, in Chapter 3?

10. How does Dillard compare a writer to a Seminole alligator wrestler?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explain the vision of what a projected work of art is, whether it be writing or painting. How does the vision lead one to a finished product?

Essay Topic 2

In Chapter 4, Dillard's Smith-Corona typewriter erupted in smoke and flames during an earthquake. What does the Beckett quote at the beginning of the chapter tell us about Dillard's personality or character? What could the fired-up typewriter be a metaphor for? Why?

Essay Topic 3

What was it about the fanaticism of Dillard's twenties that shocked her when she was writing this book? Why did she fear that it would? Describe ways noted throughout the book that exhibit Dillard's fanaticism. Is fanaticism an appropriate label for Dillard? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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