Diana E. Sheets
I have a Ph.D. in Modern European History from Columbia University with honors in Literature and Politics, which I studied with Edward Said. Later, I worked in corporate sales in metro New York before relocating to the Midwest to write fiction and, more recently, literary criticism and political commentary.
The publishing industry has reduced its fictional offerings in recent years to the most banal, the most feminized, the most gentrified, the most formulaic, the most politically correct pabulum. Yet, its readership continues to plummet. In response, publishers have increasingly promoted nonfiction: celebrity tales, exhibitionism cum memoir, and a deluge of informational prattle. Sadly, the once wild and dynamic range of fictional offerings is no more.
In defiance of this abysmal trend, I have created LiteraryGulag.com, a blog devoted to literary criticism, political commentary, and my fiction. I hope to demonstrate why stories must dispense with solipsistic preoccupations of self and love and family to examine the world at large. Permit me to make my case. Read my writings mindful of the consequences.
FICTION
- The Cusp of Dreams (2009) is serialized on my website (available for download free) and may be purchased as an e-book at www.amazon.com in their Kindle Store for $5.99. It is also available as a paperback at both Amazon, https://a.co/d/7wXKwYn, and Lulu Books, http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/diana-e-sheets/the-cusp-of-dreams/paperback/product-6443331.html. To access links on my website to both Amazon and Lulu Books, click on that book cover featured on my website.
SUMMARY: The Cusp of Dreams, as Christoph Irmscher at Indiana University noted, is "a sequence of fast-moving stories about the competitive, inhuman world of corporate America. Sheets knows this environment from the inside out and recreates the verbal bluster, stunted emotions, and real pain of her characters with great authenticity. She is the John Cheever of sales management." - American Suite (2010) has been published by Jorge Pinto Books. It is available as an e-book at both Amazon, https://a.co/d/2kjEYkF, and Apple Books, https://books.apple.com/us/book/american-suite/id418721496, for less than $10.00 and may be purchased as a paperback on Amazon as well. You may also access these hyperlinks by clicking on that book cover featured on my website.
SUMMARY: American Suite is a diary novel nominally about love and the American family. But as author Jerry Sander noted, American Suite is "unafraid of taking on the sacred cows of 'chick lit' in a sweeping family saga that offers up sexy men, violent and treacherous romance, dull marriage, soulful union and resourceful women.... Religious and spiritual confusions vie for attention with family loyalties and geographic rootedness as a New Yorker moves to the Midwest in search of a good-enough life." - The Schwarzschild Radius (2024) is available on Amazon, https://a.co/d/a6XcUVL, Barnes & Noble (best pricing for the paperback edition), https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-schwarzschild-radius-diana-e-sheets/1146632665, Apple Books (an e-book and soon featuring Apple's digitally enhanced audiobook), https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-schwarzschild-radius/id6749028869, as well as many other distributors. You may also access these hyperlinks by clicking on that book cover featured on my website.
SUMMARY: The Schwarzschild Radius is a love story between a cyborg, Emoja, and the last surviving Oturian, an outlaw known as the Galactic Kid. It is about the loss of consciousness and, ultimately, all human life on that doomed planet. The demise of a global civilization is juxtaposed against the dream of cosmic rebirth. It is Eros and Thanatos set within a matrix populated with mortals, cyborgs, robots, as well as ChandraX, the omniscient narrator.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
- The Doubling: Those Influential Writers That Shape Our Contemporary Perceptions of Identity and Consciousness in the New Millennium (2016) was published by Nova Science Publishers. My book is presented in a Q & A format with penetrating questions provided by Michael F. Shaughnessy. This textbook is suited for high school and college classes, libraries, and educational institutions.
This hard cover book is available on Amazon, https://a.co/d/5Rznekf and Nova Science Publishers, https://novapublishers.com/shop/the-doubling-those-influential-writers-that-shape-our-contemporary-perceptions-of-identity-and-consciousness-in-the-new-millennium/. You may also access those hyperlinks by clicking on the book cover featured on my website or going to the University of Illinois IDEALS website, an open-access site devoted to learning & scholarship, https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/104951. - My unpublished Ph.D. thesis from Columbia University on modern British history was completed in 1986. It is entitled British Conservatism and the Primrose League: The Changing Character of Popular Politics, 1883-1901 and is available for download at the University of Illinois IDEALS website, https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/9026.
PUBLISHED CHAPTER EXCERPTS
- "Transformative Initiatives: How iFoundry Reimagines STEM Education for the 21st Century" appeared in Transforming Institutions: Undergraduate STEM Education for the 21st Century, published by Purdue University Press (2016). That essay of mine examines an enrichment program for engineering undergraduates developed in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is available for download on my website by clicking on the book cover or by going to the University of Illinois IDEALS website, https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/95793.
- "The Humanities in Crisis: What Went Wrong and How to Restore Their Centrality in our Daily Lives" was published in The Humanities in 2015: Why We Need Them and How They Contribute to Being Human, Nova Science Publishers (2014). That essay is available for download on my website by clicking on the book cover or by going to the University of Illinois IDEALS website, https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/55018.
- "Reading and Thinking Critically in the Age of Disputation" was published in Critical Thinking and Higher Order Thinking: A Current Perspective, Nova Science Publishers (2012). That essay is available for download on my website by clicking on the book cover or by going to the University of Illinois IDEALS website, https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/55012.
- "The Great Books and Cultural Identity: The Rise and Fall of Western Memory and Its Implications for Our Time" was published in Reading in 2010, Nova Science Publishers (2010). That essay is available for download on my website by clicking on the book cover or by going to the University of Illinois IDEALS website, https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/55013.
CRITICISM & COMMENTARY POSTS
(Scroll down to view or print these posts.) All of the content on my website, except for my novels American Suite & The Schwarzschild Radius, are also available on the University of Illinois Ideals public access website. To download content featured under Criticism & Commentary Posts on my website, click on titles. This includes not only all the chapters from my nonfiction work The Doubling (1-15) but also my blogposts. The published essays and scholarly paper, as I said earlier, are available by clicking on the book covers featured on my website. All this material is also available on the University of Illinois IDEALS website under the heading "Literary Gulag," https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/units/51.Copyright 2025 Diana Sheets. All Rights Reserved.
