Joshua Keller

Jan 10, 2025 | therumpus.net | Ben Nadler |Joshua Keller

By Joshua Keller and Ben NadlerCollaborative Criticism is a Rumpus column that features critical work co-written or produced by two or more people. When we sit down to write a story, it’s hard not to hear the lyrics of an old punk song by X-Ray Spex hammering away in our heads: “I’m a cliché/ I’m a cliché/ I’m a cliché you’ve seen before.”[i] Just about every writer will recognize the sentiment—that the stories we tell are not in any way original. This concern is not new; in fact, nothing is.