If fiction is a "vivid and continuous dream" as John Gardner puts it, finishing a book or story is like waking up from that dream: do you prefer a loud, one-off alarm or a gentle crescendo of snoozes? This episode looks at Raymond Carver and Alice Munro's signature endings and the speeds at which we exit a story.

Mentioned in this episode: Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981); Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness (2009).

Music: Carole Cassier

The Quarantine Quill is a creative writing podcast hosted by Anna Polonyi with the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking. The podcast will be bringing you a daily writing tip and prompt for as long as PICT's creative writing events are on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic. For more details on the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking, please visit parisinstitute.org.