Girl Meets Grammarian

By G.G. Andrew

Poet Eliza Stein is trying to establish herself as a new professor at a prestigious university. But when she meets and quarrels with Dr. Kunal Narang over sentence diagramming, she realizes it's going to be more difficult to stake out her place than she expected. If only Kunal wasn't so infuriating, so infuriatingly charming...

Or so good with his hands.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G.G. Andrew
• Release date: May 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9798201915667

G.G. Andrew

G.G. Andrew has written love stories about poets, ghosts, reformed mean girls, grammar nerds, kleptomaniacs, cops, graffiti artists, and many, many horror geeks, but what they all have in common is they’re filled with humor and heart. (And sometimes a Star Wars reference or two.) She writes about books for the BookBub Blog. An avid nerd, G.G. enjoys British comedy, black licorice, neon pink, frozen concoctions, monster movies, and any type of rom-com. She’s probably drinking tea right now. Join her mailing list to get free stories, scenes, and sneak peeks at new books.

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Chapter One

His face was impossible to read.

The man in the front row at Eliza’s talk was attractive. He was slim and tall, one arm casually slung over the empty chair next to him. He wore a black button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal his brown skin.

But it wasn’t just his looks that had distracted her. His dark eyes flickered with some strange emotion—captivated but somehow disapproving.

Eliza, her words having spun away from her at the sight of him, drew herself back together as she stood behind the podium addressing the small crowd at the university.

I read an article a few years back, she told them, averting her eyes from the man. "On the importance of grammatical structure in writing. On the knowledge of it being essential to good writing. But I say humans have been writing for far longer than we’ve been diagramming sentences."

A fiftyish woman with wispy silver-blonde hair nodded in the crowd. Dr. Tompkins, who’d been so instrumental to Eliza being recently hired as an associate professor. The older professor thought she would bring a much-needed fresh perspective to the English curriculum. Eliza was a young poet in a tepid sea of serious scholars—some who’d been there for decades, clasping tight to opinions they’d held semester after semester.

We’d still be using parts of speech even if we never gave them each a name, if we never trapped each part and said it could only do this and never that.

Eliza glanced quickly at the man in front and saw his fingers twitch. A giveaway to what he was: one of those serious scholars, probably tenured for a decade or more, judging by the few grays sprouting in his otherwise jet-black hair.

He raised his hand.

Eliza hadn't been taking questions. She hadn’t thought that would happen.

Yes? she asked the man, the muscles in her stomach tensing.

You say people have been writing longer than diagramming, he began, and the knot inside her gut began to melt.

His voice was rich, British woven over an Indian accent, and its timbre swept her insides in a way that caught her off-guard.

Her lips parted. Y-yes, she stammered.

But why does that mean knowledge of grammar can’t aid our writing? Just because it’s relatively recent doesn’t mean it can’t be valuable, does it?

Not necessarily, Eliza admitted. But essential? Helpful to our students? I have my doubts.

Hmm, came his only reply. That, and his fingers twitched again.

Eliza paused. She guessed this was Dr. Narang, one of the few members of the faculty she hadn’t yet met. She remembered the name from the university website, the way the syllables of his surname had seemed to sing in her head, the consonants laced together so softly.

Which program did he teach? She couldn’t remember, and it made her uneasy.

In the uncomfortable silence that followed, she shifted her weight and felt the squeeze of the boots on her calves and the silky tights underneath holding her together. They whispered with the movement, grounding her in the present, when her thoughts and words threatened to float away from her.

She tried to continue as if he hadn’t spoken. I thought, when I was in middle school, that just because I wasn’t the type of person who could sniff out a gerund, I’d never be a writer. Or a writer people respected. Yet here I am.

She looked back at him—and in that moment something shifted. He tilted his head and his face changed, softened, liked he’d made a decision Eliza wasn’t privy to. His deep brown eyes suddenly seemed to twinkle.

She’d amused him. But how?

She looked away. So I say let’s not get mired in grammar. Let our students play with words and experiment. They need to feel each syllable, wherever it may land, whatever its title, on their tongues and their fingers.

She paused and looked directly into the man’s dark eyes again, challenging him to give her another disapproving look or question, and he—smiled?

She broke the stare.

Let us do away with the cumbersome sentence diagrams, she continued. Let us remember that grammar rules are sometimes made to be broken. Let us bring the art and joy back to writing and our English curriculums. Thank you.

She gave a short nod, indicating she was done, and stepped back from the podium with a slow exhale.

The room of professors and students started clapping—most politely, some enthusiastically while beaming at her.

Dr. Tompkins walked up to dismiss