Welcome back, everyone! We at JFR have many new members this semester, and we’d like to start off by introducing Harper Saglier, our new Assistant Prose Editor and Blogger! Harper is a junior at Lewis University majoring in English with a concentration in Writing. They are currently employed at the Howard and Lois Adelmann Regional History Collection. When they aren’t reading academic material, they enjoy watching movies and reading books from their endless growing backlog of recommendations. They hope to use the analysis and writing skills gained from Lewis to further drive their interest in literature beyond graduation. Some of their favorite authors include Neil Gaiman and Oscar Wilde.
Who are you and what is your role in Jet Fuel Review?
My name is Harper Saglier, and I’m a Prose Editor for Jet Fuel Review
What book might we find on your nightstand right now?
While I don’t have too much time to read for fun outside of classes, I have been reading Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong. I’m usually not someone who reads poetry too often, but this book has kept my interest for its entirety.
If you had the chance to co-write with one author, who would you choose? Why?
If I had the chance, I would love to see what I could create with Shirley Jackson. I would love to know what the thought process was like when creating things like “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House. Her style of writing has always interested me just because of how effective it was at creating horror at a slower pace rather than throwing it all at the audience at the same time.
Give us a quote from your favorite (or any) book/movie.
I can’t choose between either Bruce Campbell’s “Groovy” one-liner from Evil Dead 2 and “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die” from The Princess Bride. They always make me laugh no matter what mood I’m in.
What piece of literature can you reread over and over again?
Easily The Haunting of Hill House. Not only is the entire conflict of the story ambiguous enough to benefit from multiple readings, but it also has an unreliable narrator, which leaves a lot to the reader’s imagination in terms of what actually happened during the story. I also like comparing it to its TV series adaptation because so many different things change between them while still informing each other.
Share your top five favorite pieces of writing (anything included, be it movies, books, etc.).
Blade Runner 2049
Coraline
Midnight Mass
No Longer Human
The Haunting of Hill House