A Writer's Moment: Writing Her 'Expressions of Life'

A Writer's Moment: Writing Her 'Expressions of Life': “I can't speak for readers in general, but personally I like to read stories behind which there is some truth, som...

Writing Her 'Expressions of Life'

“I can't speak for readers in general, but personally I like to read stories behind which there is some truth, something real and above all, something emotional. I don't like to read essays on literature; I don't like to read critical or rational or impersonal or cold disquisitions on subjects.” – Laura Esquivel

The author of the award-winning novel (also an award-winning film) Like Water for Chocolate, Esquivel is a Mexican novelist, essayist and screenwriter who was born on this day in 1950.

She has been honored for both her fiction and screenwriting, but has perhaps had her biggest impact with her powerful essays on life, love and food and their impact on the culture of her native Mexico – themes that resonate around the globe.  Esquivel has stated that she believes the kitchen is the most important part of the house and characterizes it as a source of knowledge and understanding that brings pleasure. 

Despites great success in each, Esquivel gravitates toward fiction writing ahead of screenwriting.

“In film you can use images exclusively and narrate a whole story very quickly, but you don't always so easily find the form in cinema to dig deeper into human thoughts and emotions,” she explained.  “In a novel you can much more easily express a character's inner thoughts and feelings.”

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A Writer's Moment: Something Worth Saying

A Writer's Moment: Something Worth Saying: “The difference between people who believe they have books inside of them and those who actually write books is sheer ...

Something Worth Saying

“The difference between people who believe they have books inside of them and those who actually write books is sheer cussed persistence - the ability to make yourself work at your craft, every day - the belief, even in the face of obstacles, that you've got something worth saying.” – Jennifer Weiner

Born in 1970, Weiner jump-started her writing career by developing a column called  Generation XIII, i.e., Generation X – the generation to which she belongs – at a small Pennsylvania newspaper.  After a stint at the Lexington, KY, Herald-Leader she moved over to the Philadelphia Inquirer where she continued to write her columns, did feature stories, and freelanced for such notable magazines as Mademoiselle and Seventeen.

After earning awards for her newspaper work, she started writing novels in the 2000s and has had great success, including the terrific In Her Shoes  (also made into a feature film). To date, she has authored 9 bestselling books – 8 novels and a collection of short stories – with a reported 11 million copies in print in 36 countries.

In addition to writing fiction, Weiner is known for "live-tweeting" episodes of the reality dating shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.    “I don't write literary fiction,” she said.  “I write books that are entertaining, but are also, I hope, well-constructed and thoughtful and funny and have things to say about men and women and families and children and life in America today.”

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A Writer's Moment: Where Poetry Begins

A Writer's Moment: Where Poetry Begins: “Poetry begins where language starts: in the shadows and accidents of one person's life.” – Eavan Boland  Bor...

Where Poetry Begins

“Poetry begins where language starts: in the shadows and accidents of one person's life.” – Eavan Boland 

Born on Sept. 24, 1944, Boland is both an award winning writer and a longtime professor (at Stanford University) whose work focuses on the Irish national identity and the role of women in Irish history.    She holds the rare distinction of being inducted into both the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Royal Irish Academy.  Among Boland’s best-known works are The Lost Land, In A Time of Violence, and A Woman Without A Country.

For Saturday’s Poem, here is Boland’s

                                                 

                                       This Moment

                                              A neighbourhood. 

                                              At dusk. 

                                              Things are getting ready 

                                              to happen 

                                              out of sight.

                                              Stars and moths. 

                                              And rinds slanting around fruit.

                                              But not yet.

                                              One tree is black. 

                                              One window is yellow as butter.

                                              A woman leans down to catch a child 

                                              who has run into her arms 

                                              this moment.  

                                              Stars rise. 

                                              Moths flutter. 

                                              Apples sweeten in the dark.

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A Writer's Moment: Willpower: A Catalyst For Writing

A Writer's Moment: Willpower: A Catalyst For Writing: “The life of the professional writer - like that of any freelance, whether she be a plumber or a podiatrist - is predi...

Willpower: A Catalyst For Writing

“The life of the professional writer - like that of any freelance, whether she be a plumber or a podiatrist - is predicated on willpower. Without it there simply wouldn't be any remuneration, period.” – Will Self

 

Born in London on this date in 1961, Self is an author, journalist, political commentator and television personality who has written 11 novels, 5 collections of shorter fiction, 3 novellas, and 5 collections of non-fiction. 

          A columnist for the British political and cultural journal The New Statesman, he also is a regular contributor to publications like The Guardian, Harper's, and The New York Times.  A graduate of Oxford University, where he studied politics, philosophy and economics, he actually started at The New Statesman as a political cartoonist while also pursuing a career as a standup comic.  But he was always drawn to writing, something he had first done for Oxford student publications. 

“I write because I feel driven to write,” he said.   “I write from a sense of inner necessity. I don't write for anything other than that.”

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A Writer's Moment: Following 'A Writing Habit'

A Writer's Moment: Following 'A Writing Habit': What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and w...

Following 'A Writing Habit'

What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and write. I'm lucky I learned that habit a really long time ago. I credit my mother with that. She was an English teacher, but she was a writer.” – Luanne Rice

Born in Connecticut on this date in 1955, Rice has been a regular on the New York Times’ Bestseller List, but then she’s had lots of opportunities.    Her 32 novels have been translated into 24 languages and half-dozen been made into movies – two on the “Hallmark Hall of Fame.” 

Many of her novels deal with love and family, although it is about nature and the sea that she truly excels.  Among her works are The Lemon Orchard, Little Night, The Silver Boat, and Sandcastles. Rice started writing early and had her first published poem (in the Hartford Courant) at age 11.  Her first short story was published in American Girl magazine when she was 15, and her debut novel, Angels All Over Town, at age 30.

She said she enjoys doing research, and also writes down her dreams – both of which make up parts of her work.  But, she said, she bases many characters on the real people who she has met and is inspired by.  “While novels are fiction, mine are usually very close to my heart.” 

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A Writer's Moment: Writing For The Ages

A Writer's Moment: Writing For The Ages: “An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever a...

Writing For The Ages

“An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

For all intents and purposes, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (named in part for his famous relative and writer of “The Star Spangled Banner”) lived up to his own advice.  Born in St. Paul, MN, on this date in 1896, Fitzgerald is widely regarded and studied as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century, although he did not receive much critical acclaim until after his death in 1940.

Educated at top schools, including Princeton University, Fitzgerald started writing early and had his first short story published at age 13.       Perhaps the most notable member of the so-called  "Lost Generation” of the 1920s, Fitzgerald achieved popular success, fame, and fortune in his lifetime, but also lived on the edge of poverty on a number of occasions because of his excessive lifestyle.

While he wrote only 5 novels, led by The Great Gatsby, they remain among the most studied works of the first half of the last century.  He also was one of the most popular writers of short stories and screenplays, writing close to 200 short stories (mostly for popular magazines) during his lifetime.

“You don't write because you want to say something,” Fitzgerald advised.  “You write because you have something to say.”

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A Writer's Moment: Expressing 'The Beauty of Language'

A Writer's Moment: Expressing 'The Beauty of Language': “Poetry offers works of art that are beautiful, like paintings, which are my second favorite work of the art, but ther...

Expressing 'The Beauty of Language'

“Poetry offers works of art that are beautiful, like paintings, which are my second favorite work of the art, but there are also works of art that embody emotion and that are kind of school for feeling. They teach how to feel, and they do this by the means of their beauty of language.” – Donald Hall

Born in Connecticut on Sept. 20, 1928, Hall authored more than 50 books across several genres from children's literature to biography, memoir and essays as well as  22 volumes of verse.  A graduate of both Harvard and Oxford he was the first poetry editor of The Paris Review, and was noted for interviewing poets and other authors on their craft.       He also was America’s 14^th Poet Laureate, recipient of the National Medal of the Arts, and winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement.   For Saturday’s Poem, here is Hall’s,

       Ox Cart Man

In October of the year,
he counts potatoes dug from the brown field,
counting the seed, counting
the cellar's portion out,
and bags the rest on the cart's floor.

He packs wool sheared in April, honey
in combs, linen, leather
tanned from deerhide,
and vinegar in a barrel
hooped by hand at the forge's fire.

He walks by his ox's head, ten days
to Portsmouth Market, and sells potatoes,
and the bag that carried potatoes,
flaxseed, birch brooms, maple sugar, goose
feathers, yarn.

When the cart is empty he sells the cart.
When the cart is sold he sells the ox,
harness and yoke, and walks
home, his pockets heavy
with the year's coin for salt and taxes,

and at home by fire's light in November cold
stitches new harness
for next year's ox in the barn,
and carves the yoke, and saws planks
building the cart again.

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A Writer's Moment: A 'Writing Life' Fully Engaged

A Writer's Moment: A 'Writing Life' Fully Engaged: “Writing is also about a life engaged. And so, for me, community work, working in the schools or with grassroots conse...

A 'Writing Life' Fully Engaged

“Writing is also about a life engaged. And so, for me, community work, working in the schools or with grassroots conservation organizations is another critical component of my life as a writer. I cannot separate the writing life from a spiritual life, from a life as a teacher or activist or my life intertwined with family and the responsibilities we carry within our own homes. Writing is daring to feel what nurtures and breaks our hearts. Bearing witness is its own form of advocacy. It is a dance with pain and beauty. “ – Terry Tempest Williams

Born in California in September 1955, Williams now lives in Utah where she has earned a reputation as both a leading activist and leading writer on behalf of America’s wilderness and natural areas.  She writes extensively on issues of ecology, wilderness preservation and man’s relationship to nature.

Among her best-known books are Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; The Open Space of Democracy; and Finding Beauty in a Broken World.     Featured in Ken Burns’ PBS series The National Parks: America's Best Idea and in Stephen Ives's PBS documentary series The West (produced by Burns), she has been widely honored for her activism and writing, including the prestigious Lannan Literary Fellowship for Creative Nonfiction and the John Muir Award from the Sierra Club.

“. . .Wildness,” she said, “reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.”

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A Writer's Moment: Demanding 'Results' From Characters

A Writer's Moment: Demanding 'Results' From Characters: One of my great passions is the collection of historical trivia…I love to curl up with a book about some dusty corner of history.” – Lynn...

Demanding 'Results' From Characters

One of my great passions is the collection of historical trivia…I love to curl up with a book about some dusty corner of history.” – Lynn Abbey

Born in Upstate New York on this day in 1948, Marilyn Lorraine “Lynn” Abbey was firmly entrenched as a computer programmer when she literally got started in the writing and publishing world by accident.  In 1979, while driving to pick up famed science fiction writer Gordon R. Dickson for a guest appearance at a SciFi Convention, she was severely injured in a car accident.  Dickson, feeling guilty, offered to critique and even edit some of her writing after learning that Abbey not only was a fan of his work but also had been doing some creative writing of her own.

His assistance led to her first book Daughter of the Bright Moon being accepted and published to accolades that got her hooked on doing more.  Later that same year she also had her first short story "The Face of Chaos," published as part of a Thieves World anthology.  Since then, the anthology route has been a good one for Abbey, who has had numerous additional stories selected – constantly exposing her writing to many new readers who like to read books of short stories by a range of authors. 

                                      
Abbey says as a writer she demands results from her characters. “ I'm one of those writers who, when writing, believes she's god - and that she hasn't bestowed free will on any of her characters,” she said.   “In that sense there are no surprises in any of my books.”

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A Writer's Moment: Setting Your Writing Routine

A Writer's Moment: Setting Your Writing Routine: “I needed to find my way to write. I need about six hours of uninterrupted time in order to produce about two hours of...

Setting Your Writing Routine

“I needed to find my way to write. I need about six hours of uninterrupted time in order to produce about two hours of writing, and when I accepted that and found the way to do it, then I was able to write.” – Robert B. Parker

Born in Springfield, MA on this date in 1932, Parker intended to teach for a living.  And, he was well into an English Lit career at Northeastern University (where he became a full professor) before switching to writing when his novels about a detective named “Spenser” hit the bestseller lists.  Ultimately, he would write 41 books about the private eye.  His writing about Spenser is often credited with changing the style and face of the crime-writing genre.  

Parker loved Boston and the Boston area (the setting for Spenser books) and walked the streets, learned the vernacular of its various districts, and studied policing there. “There can never be any substitute for your own palate nor any better education than tasting the wine yourself,” he said. 

                                    Spenser also became a popular TV series “Spenser for Hire,” but more recently it’s his “Jesse Stone” television series that have brought Parker a whole new audience for his writing. 

His advise for new writers is simple:   “If you want to write, write it. That's the first rule. And send it in, and send it in to someone who can publish it or get it published. Don't send it to me. Don't show it to your spouse, or your significant other, or your parents, or somebody. They're not going to publish it.”

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A Writer's Moment: Books That 'Have Emotion At Their Heart'

A Writer's Moment: Books That 'Have Emotion At Their Heart': “The best novels are those that are important without being like medicine; they have something to say, are expansive a...

Books That 'Have Emotion At Their Heart'

“The best novels are those that are important without being like medicine; they have something to say, are expansive and intelligent but never forget to be entertaining and to have character and emotion at their heart." -- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Adichie, who was born in Nigeria on this date in 1977, has not only been published in the world’s leading English language publications, but also been translated into more than 30 languages. 

Winner of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (also known as “The Genius Grant”), she is the author of the award-winning novels Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and Americanah, plus numerous short stories and nonfiction that has won many of the world’s leading writing prizes.  Among those are the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, The Reader’s Digest Author of the Year, and a PEN Pinter Prize. 

                                        “I am drawn, as a reader, to detail-drenched stories about human lives affected as much by the internal as by the external,” she said.  “(It’s what) Jane Smiley nicely describes as 'first and foremost about how individuals fit, or don't fit, into their social worlds.’”

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A Writer's Moment: We All Use Language 'Poetically'

A Writer's Moment: We All Use Language 'Poetically': “Everyone is not able, or inclined, to write poetry in the narrower sense any more than everyone is qualified to take ...

We All Use Language 'Poetically'

“Everyone is not able, or inclined, to write poetry in the narrower sense any more than everyone is qualified to take part in a walking race. But just as all of us can and do walk, so all of us can and do use language poetically.” – Louis MacNeice

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on this date in 1907, MacNeice was a popular poet and playwright in his relatively short lifetime (he died at age 55).  He authored 22 books of poetry, a dozen plays, 2 novels and several non-fiction books, including a highly regarded book of criticism Varieties of Parable (published posthumously).     His autobiographical long poem Autumn Journal – written to record his state of mind from time immersed in the Spanish Civil War and his belief that another World War was inevitable – is considered his poetic masterpiece.    

 For Saturday’s Poem, here is MacNeice’s,

Sunlight On The Garden

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold;
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

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