What a Bullet Can Do
A New Kind of Book Club. Starting Conversations. Finding Common Ground.About this siteHow it works
Welcome…
Welcome to WHAT A BULLET CAN DO, a new kind of book club.
I’ve been wondering for quite some time how people living in the United States at this particular moment can have meaningful conversations about making our homes and communities safer in the face of unacceptably high levels of gun violence.
I keep coming back to book clubs and the discussions I used to facilitate with my high school students. I’ve always felt more connected to others when considering big ideas and the complexities of being human. We were on a journey together, a journey built around respectful listening and talking.
I also keep coming back to books and literature because I’m a writer. Reading, writing, and conversation are the tools I use to process what’s going on in my life and in the world. For the past fifteen years I have been actively researching and talking, reading, and writing about an unintentional shooting from my childhood. I’ve had several essays published on this tragic but avoidable event, which resulted in the death of a neighbor. One of those essays, “What A Bullet Can Do,” was published by Hazlitt, named notable in The Best American Essays 2019, and won the 2019 Maine Literary Award for short nonfiction.
So… I’m hoping others will find the novels, short stories, essays, memoirs, and poems highlighted here as paths into this typically divided conversation. That’s what this website is all about. Looking forward to the conversation…
2022 By The Numbers
*As of… June 15, 2022
Unintentional Shootings
Chlidren/Teens Killed and Injured
Number of Injuries
Number of Deaths
*Up-to-date statistics available at Gun Violence Archive.
Here’s How It Works
Check out the LIBRARY page, which will be continually updated.
Decide on a selection for your book club or for any organization (church, PTA, library) that wants to venture into a civil conversation about guns.
Set a date and location for the meeting.
Check out the DISCUSSION GUIDE for a list of suggested “agreements” for how the group will operate. Modify as you see fit.
If you’d like any help facilitating the conversation, I’m glad to Skype/Zoom, or come to a meeting in northern New England, if we can work it out.
If you choose to read/discuss any of my essays, I’m also available to give a reading in person or via Skype/Zoom to launch your discussion.
I’d love to know how it goes! Let me know if you want to share your group’s story on the blog here. Your story can inspire others to move away from polarized rhetoric and engage in reasonable conversations about guns and safety.
Finally, see the RESOURCES page if you’d like to get involved in the gun violence prevention movement or are in need of survivor support services. There are people available to help you cope, people who are themselves survivors. You are not alone.
Recent Posts
The Blessing by Gregory Orr
In this compact and haunting memoir, Gregory Orr, Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia, shares the immediate and long-term impact of his unintentional shooting of a younger brother, when he himself was just 12 years old, while hunting with their father....
Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir
This memoir by Pulitzer Prize winner and former US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey takes readers on a tender, inquisitive, and insightful journey into her relationship with her Black mother, who was murdered in Atlanta by an...
Brother Bullet
In the poetry collection Brother Bullet, poet Casandra López explores her grief in the wake of the death of her brother, Joseph, who was killed by gun violence in December 2010. Lopez takes a reader through the terrain of memory, individual and collective. From the...