Oedipus/Hazel Motes

 Today's post comes from the talented Dawna Kemper who is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles. Her short fiction has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Santa Monica Review, The Idaho Review and other literary journals. She recently completed a short story collection and is working on her first novel.

Lately, because I’ve been reading Michael Wood’s The Road to Delphi, I’ve been thinking about oracles, and the desire to have the future spelled out at the same time that we really don’t want to hear what’s coming. (Climate change deniers, take note.) Naturally, I think of Sophocles’ Oedipus, about which Wood writes eloquently, comparing versions ancient and modern.

I was thinking about these comparisons when

Myths/retellings

I've been preparing to teach a life writing class in which I'm going to introduce some of the basic elements of myth as a way of getting people to write about their own lives. So I've been reading a lot of myths and a lot about them.

As I've done so, I realise