Rick Bragg in Kalamazoo

In Rick Bragg’s speech in Kalamazoo he explains the many books and where he gets his ideas, stories, and inspiration. All of the examples he gave were from his relatives. He wrote originally about his mother, to honor her for what she sacrificed for his sake. He says that the mistake she made was that she married for love, and ended up suffering for it. His next book was about his grandfather, whom he never met, and regrets deeply. His grandmother was the basis for most of his stories about his grandfather and the passage he read during the lecture was his favorite passage to read out loud. It shows how important caring about your subject is when it comes to writing. He then wrote about his father, in what sounded like his most time consuming and involved project, because it was so difficult to find out good stories about his “daddy.” At the end he shared a story about his son that he “inherited” when he married his wife. All of the stories that Rick Bragg wrote were about his family and those that affected him in his life.

Rick Bragg’s speaking was so much different from his writing because of the different inflections that he put on his words and what was important in the stories to him. When he would read a joke out of the stories he would add different inflections. You could also tell what he wanted appreciated more than in the books because he would comment on people’s reactions. Another interesting part about him speaking rather than reading his stories was that his accent made different phrases and words and sections of the stories more realistic. It put me more in the setting that Bragg was in when he was writing and experiencing the events.