• Café Life is the Colony's main hangout, watering hole and meeting point.

    This is a place where you'll meet and make writing friends, and indulge in stratospherically-elevated wit or barometrically low humour.

    Some Colonists pop in religiously every day before or after work. Others we see here less regularly, but all are equally welcome. Two important grounds rules…

    • Don't give offence
    • Don't take offence

    We now allow political discussion, but strongly suggest it takes place in the Steam Room, which is a private sub-forum within Café Life. It’s only accessible to Full Members.

    You can dismiss this notice by clicking the "x" box

Craft Chat Memory, MAGA, Madeleines & Manipulation: The Power of Nostalgia

Invest in You. Get Full Membership now.

AgentPete

Capo Famiglia
Guardian
Full Member
Joined
May 19, 2014
Location
London UK
LitBits
43
United-Nations
Delighted to give everyone a sneak peak into a recent Huddle...



What makes Gone With the Wind so emotionally powerful — even when it evokes longing for a world we’d never want to return to?
In this week’s Huddle, I was pleased to lead a lively, provocative discussion on nostalgia: how writers use it, why readers respond so deeply to it, and how easily it can slip from emotional connection into manipulation.

From Margaret Mitchell’s antebellum South to Marcel Proust’s madeleine cakes, from The Great Gatsby to Downton Abbey and even modern politics, the Huddle explores how nostalgia shapes our sense of identity, memory, and storytelling.

Books mentioned:
Gone With the Wind — Margaret Mitchell
In Search of Lost Time — Marcel Proust
The Remains of the Day — Kazuo Ishiguro
Brideshead Revisited — Evelyn Waugh
The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald
Confederates in the Attic — Tony Horwitz

Do join us for our weekly Writer's Huddles, included in your Full Membership!
 
Last edited:



My husband found this and was horrified. I investigated and am even more horrified that this is being foisted onto NATO generals as an extension of war-gaming. This mediocre AI slop from people w degrees in marketing and MBA's in how to manipulate populations thru story. "Fiction writers imagineering the future of war." Not to mention the production company is called Ponywurst. Leni Riefenstahl. is obviously the inspiration here. # using story to manipulate.
 
Last edited:

Further Articles from the Author Platform

Latest Articles By Litopians

  • Then Someone Said
    . I thought I’d play the rapping game: words in rhythm (no chance of gain). . Shyness prevailed, b ...
  • The Language Of Place
    Pimp, dick, bumfit admittedly sounds well dodgy. Or at least it does if you don’t live in these pa ...
  • If the Protagonist Had Slept in
    The PROTAGONIST’S room. Chapter One’s bloodstained clothes still cover the floor. The DIRECTOR s ...
  • A Fresh Start
    There comes a point in life* when you must admit that you were wrong. A story is trundling along at ...
  • The Book They Actually Wanted
    Writers need feedback, and I have found the perfect focus group*. It offers raw, physical reactions, ...
  • People Like Those: Aigneis
    Aigneis is a diminutive lady in her 80s, still sharp of mind, though frail of limb. She moved to Bir ...
  • Where it all started
    When Alphonse de Lamartine said “music is the literature of the heart,” I’m pretty sure he was ...
What Goes Around
Comes Around!
Back
Top