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A Study Guide for Kim Edwards's "The Way It Felt to Be Falling"
A Study Guide for Kim Edwards's "The Way It Felt to Be Falling"
A Study Guide for Kim Edwards's "The Way It Felt to Be Falling"
Ebook34 pages24 minutes

A Study Guide for Kim Edwards's "The Way It Felt to Be Falling"

By Gale and Cengage

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A Study Guide for Kim Edwards's "The Way It Felt to Be Falling," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 15, 2016
ISBN9781535840415
A Study Guide for Kim Edwards's "The Way It Felt to Be Falling"

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    A Study Guide for Kim Edwards's "The Way It Felt to Be Falling" - Gale

    1

    The Way It Felt to Be Falling

    Kim Edwards

    1997

    Introduction

    The Way It Felt to Be Falling, by Kim Edwards, was first published in the Threepenny Review, although it received greater exposure when it was reprinted in the author's first and only book—The Secrets of a Fire King—in 1997. Edwards wrote the story as part of her first fiction workshop that she took in college, but revised it several times over the next decade as she honed her writing skills through creative writing programs and personal experience. Like many of Edwards's stories, The Way It Felt to Be Falling features a strong female protagonist. Kate is a nineteen-year-old woman who is working to save up money for college, and who hangs out drinking and shooting pool with her unstable boyfriend, Stephen, in her off time. Kate gets talked into going skydiving, an event that helps her overcome her fears of going mad like her father. In order to accurately reflect the skydiving sequences in the story, Edwards took skydiving lessons at a local airstrip, which helped give the story a greater sense of realism. The story also addresses many realistic issues, including mental degradation, the burden of responsibility, and suicide. A copy of the story can be found in the paperback version of The Secrets of a Fire King, which was published by Picador USA in 1998.

    Author Biography

    Edwards was born on May 4, 1958, in Killeen, Texas. When she was only two months old, her parents moved the family back to upstate New York, where Edwards grew up. Although she was interested in writing since she was a little girl, it was in her college years that the wheels were set in motion for her writing career. After transferring from Auburn Community College (now Cayuga Community College) to Colgate University in 1979, she signed up for a fiction workshop. Here, Edwards wrote her first story, Cords, which eventually became The Way It Felt to Be Falling. Edwards's instructor

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