April 5

I think fiction writing helps Leo with his anxiety over becoming invisible because he is able to preserve his imagination and his intellectual capabilities in written word. I think the things he says and means are very important to him, and being able to use written word to preserve who he is is a better representation of his values. Alma thought that he had died in the war, when he was really in hiding for years. It is important to him, before and especially after that experience, to say exactly what he means and feels so that who he was can never be forgotten. His voice and existence cannot be forgotten even when the people he loves the most can no longer see him. Even though he isn’t writing non-fiction work after fiction work filled with information about himself, he is creating stories that act as representations for things he cannot/struggles to really communicate.