best words, best order celebrates brief excerpts of exceptional writing read by their authors. To learn more about best words, best order, and to nominate exceptional writing from the authors you admire on Substack, visit our information page here.
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The Nomination
I’m kicking off the inaugural voyage of best words, best order with my own nomination. I discovered Nina Schuyler through her Substack Stunning Sentences, an addictive weekly deep-dive on a single sentence. Her personal writing is equally captivating. Recently, I had the pleasure of reading her short story collection In This Ravishing World, and I could have thrown a dart at it blindfolded to find something valuable to share.
My dart landed on this excerpt from “Belonging,” in a scene where two estranged sisters meet after years apart.
The Excerpt
“Here comes Hazel, stepping into the airport, her thoughts not on the earthly but on the heavenly. When Eleanor sees her, she’s toppled over by an unexpected wave of emotion. It’s been so long, how could they have let so many years go by? Eleanor has not seen her sister for ten years, a brief visit to Tanzania when Eleanor had talks with Delmar Company about limiting its CO2 emissions. Nothing has prepared her for this. Eleanor’s early thoughts of her sister made Hazel small, an afterthought, but she is anything but that. She looms large in Eleanor’s heart, and the image of Hazel here stirs so many memories of the two of them as girls, as teens, growing beyond the envelope of home. And here is Hazel, in her dark blue skirt, matching blazer, and a starched white blouse, a prominent gold cross necklace laid openly on her chest, looking around for Eleanor.”
About Nina Schuyler
Nina Schuyler is author of the site Stunning Sentences, a Substack dedicated to “Admiring, mooning over, loving, and learning to write stunning sentences.” She teaches creative writing for Stanford Continuing Studies. Her short story collection In This Ravishing World won the W.S. Porter Prize and the Prism Prize for Climate Literature and was published in July 2024.
In This Ravishing World is available on Amazon here.
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best words, best order: nina schuyler