A Writer's Moment: 'Listen, watch and fill your mind with images'

A Writer's Moment: 'Listen, watch and fill your mind with images':   “One thing I'm interested in is what shapes us: The people? The place where we live? It's both of those and more. That's what ...

'Listen, watch and fill your mind with images'

 

“One thing I'm interested in is what shapes us: The people? The place where we live? It's both of those and more. That's what I keep coming back to.” –  Sharon Creech

 

Born in Ohio on July 29, 1945 Creech is the first American to win both the Carnegie Medal and the Newbery Medal for the same book, her amazing young adult book Walk Two Moons.  Those two major awards are among dozens Creech has earned for her writing, noting in her understated fashion: “There seemed to be an audience out there who wanted to read what I wanted to write.”    

 

While her writing career has primarily been aimed at the young adult market, adults have been a big audience for her works, too.    She embeds serious topics into her stories, including themes of independence, trust, childhood, adulthood, and death, but often softening the blow with humor. 

 

Her writing advice is simple: “Read a lot, live your life, and listen and watch, so that your mind fills up with millions of images.”

A Writer's Moment: Revealing the picture 'bit by bit'

A Writer's Moment: Revealing the picture 'bit by bit':   “Something happens between a novel and its reader which is similar to the process of developing photographs, the way they did it before th...

Revealing the picture 'bit by bit'

 

“Something happens between a novel and its reader which is similar to the process of developing photographs, the way they did it before the digital age.  The photograph, as it was printed in the darkroom, became visible bit by bit.  As you read your way through a novel, the same chemical process takes place.” – Patrick Modiano

 

Born in France on this date in 1945, Nobel Prize in Literature winner Modiano’s analogy of the development of the novel “before our eyes” also gives us a look into his writing style.  He lets the picture slowly appear, sometimes leaving us startled, sometimes satisfied, sometimes angry, but always interested in what’s coming next.  

 

His novels delve into the puzzle of identity in ways seldom seen.   And, he tackles a time in France – the German occupation during World War II – that evokes both heroism and shame depending on the point of view from which tale is being told.  Although Modiano’s works have been translated into more than 30 languages, most had not been available in English before he was awarded the Nobel in 2014.  His newest book La Danseuse, published in French is just out in the English translation.

 

He said he has never found writing, especially novels, to be easy.  “You have this dream of what you want to create," he said, "but it is like walking around a swimming pool and hesitating to jump in because the water is too cold.”

A Writer's Moment: Stirring the ingredients for success

A Writer's Moment: Stirring the ingredients for success:   “Creating characters is like throwing together ingredients for a recipe. I take characteristics I like and dislike in real people I know, ...

Stirring the ingredients for success

 

“Creating characters is like throwing together ingredients for a recipe. I take characteristics I like and dislike in real people I know, or know of, and use them to embellish and define characters.” – Cassandra Clare

 

Born to American parents in Iran on July 27, 1973 Judith Rumelt started writing as Cassandra Clare while still in high school.   By the time she finished college in the late 1990s she was writing under the name full time, beginning with a series of magazine jobs and then switching to YA fiction in 2005.    

 

She is perhaps best known for her bestselling series The Mortal Instruments, which include her mega-bestseller titles City of Bones and City of Ashes.  Her newest works are the novel The Ragpicker King in The Chronicles of Castellane series – on the market since March; and the collection Better in Black: Ten Stories of Shadowhunter Romance, scheduled for December.

 

A prolific writer, she has three dozen novels on the market or scheduled and also has written more than a dozen shorter works of fiction, all highly acclaimed and most as award winners.  Clare said her recipe for “lots of writing” is simple:

 

“Write every day. Don't kill yourself. I think a lot of people think, 'I have to write a chapter a day' and they can't. They fall behind and stop doing it. But if you just write even one hundred words a day, it's not that much. By the end of a month, you'll have three thousand words, which is one chapter.  And write what you love - don't feel pressured to write serious prose if what you like is to be funny.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Opening doors of perception'

A Writer's Moment: 'Opening doors of perception':   “There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.”  – Aldous Huxley    Born in Surrey,...

'Opening doors of perception'

 

“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” – Aldous Huxley 

 

Born in Surrey, England on July 26, 1894 Huxley wrote more than 50 books, hundreds of essays and many other works, but he was and is most recognized for his masterpiece Brave New World, destined to be studied, discussed and worried over for decades (if not centuries) to come.   

 

Huxley said he was always interested in writing, looking at life and things around him in new ways.  He completed his first novel at the age of 17 and began writing seriously in his early 20s, almost immediately establishing himself as a successful writer and social satirist.  “Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors,” he remarked, “but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.”

 

It is sometimes forgotten that he also had a successful career as a screenwriter and playwright, living for 25 years in Hollywood and then in the artist community of Taos, N.M., up to his death in 1963.   Among his screenplays were Madame Curie and Pride and Prejudice and the well-received stage shows Mortal Coils and The World of Light: A Comedy in Three Acts.

 

“The finest works of art," Huxley said, "are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.” 

 

 

A Writer's Moment: 'A condition, not a profession'

A Writer's Moment: 'A condition, not a profession':   "To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession."     –  Robert Graves   Born in Wimbledon, England on July 24, 1895 G...

'A condition, not a profession'

 "To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession."    –  Robert Graves

 

Born in Wimbledon, England on July 24, 1895 Graves was a second-generation poet, the son of the celebrated Irish poet Alfred Percival Graves.  He wrote more than 140 poetic works, some for adults and some for children, as well as several award-winning novels, including I, Claudius and Claudius The God, still bestsellers.

 

For Saturday’s Poem here are two short Graves’ poems – the first for adults; the second for children – or both for adults depending on how childlike you feel.  Cheers!

 

     Symptoms of Love

Love is universal migraine,
bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.

Symptoms of true love
Are leanness, jealousy,
Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares -
Listening for a knock,
Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingers
In a darkened room,
For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!
Could you endure such pain
At any hand but hers?

  

       I’d Love To Be A Fairy’s Child

Children born of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock,
Never want for food or fire,
Always get their hearts desire:
Jingle pockets full of gold,
Marry when they're seven years old.
Every fairy child may keep
Two ponies and ten sheep;
All have houses, each his own,
Built of brick or granite stone;
They live on cherries, they run wild--
I'd love to be a Fairy's child.

 

A Writer's Moment: 'It's that inner image of yourself'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's your inner image of yourself': “Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if...

'It's that inner image of yourself'

“Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will.” – John D. MacDonald

 

Born in Sharon, PA on this date in 1916, crime/suspense novelist and short story writer MacDonald achieved the highest accolade in his genre, being named a Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America shortly before his death in 1986.   A self-proclaimed “accidental writer” (he was considering a military career and had achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel during WWII), he also was the winner of a National Book Award with critically acclaimed Travis McGee series. 

 

MacDonald's first novel appeared in 1950, but it was his 1957 title The Executioners that put him on the map.  An almost continuous best-seller since, the book also holds the distinction of being the focus of two feature films, both box office successes.    

His character Travis McGee made his first appearance in 1964 in The Deep Blue Good-bye, starting a run of 21 bestsellers featuring him.   Each title in the series includes a color, the last being The Lonely Silver Rain.    All told, MacDonald wrote dozens of short stories and more than 60 novels with 15 adapted into movies or television series.

 

“Every day,” the always humble MacDonald said, “no matter how you fight it, you learn a little more about yourself.  And all most of it does is teach humility.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Full heart, full life'

A Writer's Moment: 'Full heart, full life':   “Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”  – Zelda Fitzgerald Born in Alabama on this date in 1900, Zel...

'Full heart, full life'

 

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” – Zelda Fitzgerald

Born in Alabama on this date in 1900, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was a prominent Socialite noted for her beauty and high spirits, and was dubbed by her husband Scott as "the first American Flapper.”  She and Scott became emblems of The Jazz Age, for which they are still celebrated.   

 

A great writer of journals, she often is credited with providing key material for her husband’s book This Side of Paradise.  He also often used her as the inspiration for his other key female characters, including Daisy in The Great Gatsby.  Her own artistic endeavors included a semi-autobiographical novel, Save Me the Waltz, a play entitled Scandalabra, and numerous magazine articles, short stories and paintings.

 

She said her life was meant to be “lived!” especially through love of those around her.  She “lived hard” and died young – in her mid-40s.   “I don't want to just live,” Fitzgerald said.  “I want to love first and live incidentally.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It has to be distilled'

A Writer's Moment: 'It has to be distilled':   “A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.”  – Raymond Chandler   Born in Chicago on this date in 1888, Chandler started...

'It has to be distilled'

 

“A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.” – Raymond Chandler

 

Born in Chicago on this date in 1888, Chandler started his writing career out of desperation after losing his oil company job during the Great Depression.  He soon found he had a great knack for crafting crime stories, writing for magazines for several years before his creating his first novel, The Big Sleep, in 1939.  The book, continuously in print ever since, was an instant hit.    

 

Chandler wrote many dozens of short stories and 7 novels including Farewell My Lovely and The Long Goodbye – named one of the top 100 novels of the 20^th Century.  His hard-boiled detective protagonist Philip Marlowe was made even more famous through the acting of Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep.  A dozen movies have now been made from Chandler’s books.

 

Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond books, said Chandler offered “some of the finest dialogue written in any prose,” and mystery writer Paul Levine described Chandler's style as the "literary equivalent of a quick punch to the gut."

 

Chandler said his advice to would-be crime writers was simple: “Write ‘actively’.   And when in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Her enduring hope for freedom'

A Writer's Moment: 'Her enduring hope for freedom':   “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”  – Emma Lazarus   Born in New York City on this date in...

'Her enduring hope for freedom'

 

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” – Emma Lazarus

 

Born in New York City on this date in 1849, Lazarus wrote poetry, prose, essays and commentary while also doing myriad translations from writings in German, French and Italian.  She is perhaps best known for her 1883 sonnet The New Colossus that includes the above lines and is inscribed on a bronze plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

 

Her fame reached new generations of Americans when the sonnet was set to music by Irving Berlin in his 1949 smash hit musical Miss Liberty; and then again in 1985 in Lee Hoiby’s “The Lady of the Harbor,” part of his song cycle "Three Women.”

 

While Lazarus wrote often on behalf of immigrants and the downtrodden, her own background came from privilege and generational American roots, both sides of her family arriving in the early 1700s.  Ultimately, her poems and essays would help shape America’s understanding of its immigrant class, her themes providing enduring lessons on the nation’s immigrant experience.      

 

Although her life was cut short by cancer (she died at age 38) her works have endured.  The Poems of Emma Lazarus has been continuously in print since being published posthumously in 1889.   In 2009 she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.  

 

 “Until we are all free,” Lazarus wrote about the hopes of new Americans, “we are, none of us, free.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The treat' of historical reseach

A Writer's Moment: 'The treat' of historical reseach:   “I was encouraged to be imaginative and read, and it was a great childhood for a budding writer because I had the time and the freedom to ...

'The treat' of historical reseach

 

“I was encouraged to be imaginative and read, and it was a great childhood for a budding writer because I had the time and the freedom to go into a world of my own.” –  Sarah Waters

 

Born in Wales on this date in 1966, Waters said her first aspiration was not to become a novelist.  “For a long time,” she said, “I wanted to be an archaeologist.” 

 

But she enjoys writing historical fiction and likes to employ mystery and suspense in her works.  Her most recent book, The Paying Guests, is both a terrific murder mystery and a detailed study of life in London right after World War I.

 

“I love research,” Waters said.   “Sometimes I think writing novels is just an excuse to allow myself this leisurely time of getting to know a period and reading its books and watching its films. I see it as a real treat.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A search for order'

A Writer's Moment: 'A search for order':     " For me, poetry is always a search for order."  – Elizabeth Jennings   Born in England on July 18, 1926 Jennings started ...

'A search for order'

  "_{For me, poetry is always a search for order." – Elizabeth Jennings}

 

_{Born in England on July 18, 1926 Jennings started her writing career by winning the Arts Council of Great Britain Prize for the best first book of poems.   And to cement her place in the genre, she followed with the prestigious Somerset Maugham Award for her collection, A Way of Looking.   For Saturday’s Poem, here is Jennings’,}

 

                     _{Rembrandt’s Late Self Portraits}

<sub>You are confronted with yourself. Each year
The pouches fill, the skin is uglier.
You give it all unflinchingly. You stare
Into yourself, beyond. Your brush's care
Runs with self-knowledge. Here

Is a humility at one with craft.
There is no arrogance. Pride is apart
From this self-scrutiny. You make light drift
The way you want. Your face is bruised and hurt
But there is still love left.

Love of the art and others. To the last
Experiment went on. You stared beyond
Your age, the times. You also plucked the past
And tempered it. Self-portraits understand,
And old age can divest,

With truthful changes, us of fear of death.
Look, a new anguish. There, the bloated nose,
The sadness and the joy. To paint's to breathe,
And all the darknesses are dared. You chose
What each must reckon with.</sub> 

A Writer's Moment: 'Out of the corner; onto the main drive'

A Writer's Moment: 'Out of the corner; onto the main drive':   “Publishers have published women's fiction into a corner, and now we are all trying to punch our way out of it. We just have to write ...

'Out of the corner; onto the main drive'

 

“Publishers have published women's fiction into a corner, and now we are all trying to punch our way out of it. We just have to write the best books we possibly can and hope that, once the pink covers and Bridget Jones' have faded from memory, we might finally be allowed just to be called writers.” – Lisa Jewell

 

Born on July 19, 1968, Jewell is one of Britain’s most popular writers – particularly of “comedy romance” – and basically got into writing on a dare.  A fashion designer at the time, Jewell accepted a challenge from a friend to write 3 chapters of a novel in exchange for dinner at her favorite restaurant. Those chapters eventually were developed into Ralph's Party, which became the UK's bestselling debut novel in 1999.

 

Since then she has written bestseller after bestseller (23 in all) including Thirtynothing, After The Party (a sequel to Ralph's Party) and Then She Was Gone.  Her latest book, Don't Let Him In, was published just 3 weeks ago.   

 

The mother of two “very busy” girls, she noted of her writing style that, “I don't really get into a writing routine until March or April, when I'll write a few hundred words a day, often in a cafe.”   
                                                          

 “I write in cafes, never at home. I cannot focus at home (and) am forever getting off my chair to do other things. In a cafe, I have to sit still, or I'll look a bit unhinged.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A perfect match between writer and reader'

A Writer's Moment: 'A perfect match between writer and reader':   “When you're watching somebody read your material and they smile and nod, you know you've found that place where your experience a...

'A perfect match between writer and reader'

 

“When you're watching somebody read your material and they smile and nod, you know you've found that place where your experience and their experience match, even though they aren't the same exact experience.” –  Chris Crutcher

Born in Dayton, Ohio on this date in 1946, Crutcher combined a successful career as a family therapist (in his adopted city of Spokane, Wash.) with an equally successful career as a writer for teens, his work being honored by the American Library Association with its coveted Margaret Edwards Award (recognition for writing for teens).

 

Many of his novels concern teenaged athletes (especially swimmers) who face major problems and get the help and support they need from wise, caring adults – usually either a teacher or a coach.   His writings have tackled such issues as abusive parents, racial and religious prejudice, mental and physical disability, or crushing poverty. 

 

One of his most honored books, Deadline, is the story of a high school senior dying from a rare blood disease who has kept that fact a secret so that he can pack a lifetime of full living into his final year.  His most recent book is Losers Bracket.

 

“What I hope my writing reflects... is a sense of the connections between all human beings... and a different perspective on the true nature of courage,” Crutcher said.   “For me, those are things worth exploring and writing about.”

A Writer's Moment: 'This is where we must go'

A Writer's Moment: 'This is where we must go':   “I try for a poetic language that says, ‘This is who we are, where we have been, where we are. This is where we must go. And this is what ...

'This is where we must go'

 

“I try for a poetic language that says, ‘This is who we are, where we have been, where we are. This is where we must go. And this is what we must do.’” – Mari Evans

 

Born in Toledo, Ohio on this date in 1923, Evans was and remains one of America’s most influential Black writers, authoring poetry, children’s literature and plays, and editing countless works of others.  She also edited the definitive and award-winning Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation. 

 

Evans, who died in 2017, attended the University of Toledo and taught at Purdue and Cornell.  In 1968 she wrote AND produced the award-winning television program, “The Black Experience.”   Her poem “Who Can Be Born Black” – often anthologized – was part of the collection Where Is All the Music? and established her as a major poetic writer.  Then her collection, I Am a Black Woman, earned her worldwide acclaim.

 

I Am A Black Woman not only resonated with the power and beauty of Black women but set the bar for many of her fellow female Black writers in the latter part of the 20th century.  

 

“I am a black woman,” Evans wrote, “tall as a cypress, strong beyond all definition, still defying place and time and circumstance, assailed, impervious, indestructible.”  

A Writer's Moment: 'Just a spot in history'

A Writer's Moment: 'Just a spot in history':   “To me, fantasy has always been the genre of escape, science fiction the genre of ideas.   So if you can escape and have a little idea as ...

'Just a spot in history'

 

“To me, fantasy has always been the genre of escape, science fiction the genre of ideas.  So if you can escape and have a little idea as well maybe you have some kind of a cross-breed between the two.” – Sheri S. Tepper

  

Born in Littleton, Colorado on this date in 1929, Tepper wrote science fiction, horror and mystery novels, perhaps best known for her science fiction with an eco-feminist slant.  Her novel Grass is considered a classic on this theme.   Tepper started writing under the name Sheri Stewart Eberhart, first doing children’s books and poetry but then finding her niche in the sci-fi/fantasy world, where she used several other pen names including A. J. Orde, E. E. Horlak, and B. J. Oliphant.

 

Among her top selling books were The Revenants, the Locus-award winning Beauty, and two best-selling multiple-award winning trilogies: The Marianne Series and The Arbai Trilogy.   All told, she wrote 40 novels, 3 books of poetry, and many short stories and essays. Shortly before her death in 2016 she was honored with the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

 

““I have always lived in a world in which I'm just a spot in history,” she said. “My life is not the important point. I'm just part of the continuum, and that continuum, to me, is a marvelous thing.”

 

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Fates that are intimately linked'

A Writer's Moment: 'Fates that are intimately linked':   “When I write stories I am like someone who is in her own country, walking along streets that she has known since she was a child, between...

'Fates that are intimately linked'

 

“When I write stories I am like someone who is in her own country, walking along streets that she has known since she was a child, between walls and trees that are hers.” – Natalia Ginzburg

 

Born in Italy on this date in 1916, Ginzburg explored family relationships and politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II.   The author of novels, short stories and essays, she won numerous awards including Italy’s two majors, the Strega Prize and the Bagutta Prize. 

 

Perhaps best known for her novels Voices in the Evening and Family Sayings (also published as The Things We Used To Say), Ginzburg also wrote a number of plays including a much-performed duo, The Advertisement and A Town By The Sea.

 

In her later years, she got involved in politics and was elected to the Italian Parliament in 1983 (she died in 1991).  Many of her essays from that time focused on the interdependence of countries as the world grew smaller from technological advancements.

 

“Today, as never before,” she wrote shortly before her death, “the fates of men are so intimately linked to one another that a disaster for one is a disaster for everybody.”

A Writer's Moment: Poetry 'discovered'

A Writer's Moment: Poetry 'discovered':   “Isn't it amazing the way the future succeeds in creating an appropriate past?”  – John Leonard   Born in Great Britain in July of...

Poetry 'discovered'

 

“Isn't it amazing the way the future succeeds in creating an appropriate past?” – John Leonard

 

Born in Great Britain in July of 1965, Leonard now makes his home in Australia where he served as poetry editor of the magazine Overland.   My first encounter with Leonard was seeing one of his lines etched onto a rugged piece of rock in a gift shop, the words reading: “It takes a long time to grow an old friend.” 

 

Among Leonard’s most celebrated works are Think of the world: Collected poems 1986-2016 and Missa Mundi, alternative texts for the four pieces of the Catholic liturgy most commonly set to music.   More about Leonard and his many writings can be found at http://www.jleonard.net/   For Saturday’s Poem, from Braided Lands, here is Leonard’s,

 

You Don't Write a Poem

You don't write a poem-

What you do is discover

That there is a world,

Quite similar to our own,

Except that it contains

This one extra poem.

 

And what you recognize

Is that this one poem

Makes all the difference

A Writer's Moment: 'Sentences that breathe and shift'

A Writer's Moment: 'Sentences that breathe and shift':   “I approach writing stories as a recorder. I think of my role as some kind of reporting device - recording and projecting.”  –  Jhumpa L...

'Sentences that breathe and shift'

 

“I approach writing stories as a recorder. I think of my role as some kind of reporting device - recording and projecting.” –  Jhumpa Lahiri

 

Born in London on this date in 1967, Lahiri is an Indian-American author and creative writing professor (at Barnard, her alma mater).  She is winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her short story collection – Interpreter of Maladies – one of the few story “collections” ever so-honored.  Her novel The Namesake, also adapted as a movie, is equally wonderful.  

 

And her most recent novel, The Lowland, is a “must read” for those who want to “know” the modern-day U.S. immigrant experience.  It was a nominee for the Man Booker Prize and a National Book Award for Fiction.  After living several years in Italy, Lahiri authored Roman Stories (in 2023), and she served as editor and translator of the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, a collection by 40 different Italian writers.

 

The first Indian-American to serve on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, she is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal for her writing. 

 

“In fiction, plenty (of words) do the job of conveying information, rousing suspense, painting characters, enabling them to speak,” Lahiri said.  “But only certain sentences breathe and shift about, like live matter in soil.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's how we keep telling ourselves our stories'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's how we keep telling ourselves our stories': “Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories - and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.”  – Alice M...

'It's how we keep telling ourselves our stories'

“Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories - and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.” – Alice Munro

 

Born in Canada on this date in 1931 (she died in May of 2024) Nobel Prize winner Munro is noted for “revolutionizing the architecture of short stories,” especially with her tendency to move forward and backward in time.   Her stories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more than parade."

 

A frequent theme of Munro’s work, particularly in her early stories like 1971’s Lives of Girls and Women, she focuses on the dilemma of girls coming of age and their relationships with both their families and small-town life.  In her later works like Runaway, she shifted her focus to the travails of middle age, women alone, and the elderly.                             

                                       

Winner of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work, she also was a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction.  Her last short story collection, Dear Life, came out in 2012 just before she was honored with the Nobel Prize.

 “A story is not like a road to follow . . . it’s more like a house,” Munro said.  “You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the rooms and corridors relate to each other; how the world outside is altered by being viewed from (each of) its windows.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Spending time in a magical world'

A Writer's Moment: 'Spending time in a magical world':   “It's a wonderful sort of feeling when people want to spend more time in a world you created.”  –  Erin Morgenstern    Born on July...

'Spending time in a magical world'

 

“It's a wonderful sort of feeling when people want to spend more time in a world you created.” –  Erin Morgenstern
 

 Born on July 8, 1978 Morgenstern got her writing career started with a bang with The Night Circus, winner of  the Locus Award for Best First Novel.  The book – which was rejected by 30 publishers before being accepted – spent 17 weeks atop the New York Times bestseller list and now has been published in more than a dozen languages.

 

She wrote the book, favorably compared to the Harry Potter books and works by Ray Bradbury. as a participant in “National Novel Writing Month” (November), where you pledge to write at least a 50,000-word novel in less than 30 days.   She continues to participate in novel-writing month, her latest book being The Starless Sea.  

 

A graduate of Smith College, where she studied both theater and studio art, she also dabbled in magic – something that set the stage for Night Circus.

 

“I am a fan of magic and fantasy, particularly when it's grounded in reality,” she said.  “I like the idea of having actual magic performed as stage magic, so you could assume that it was just a trick; that something is all smoke and mirrors, but there's that, like, feeling at the back of your mind: 'What if it's not?'”   

A Writer's Moment: 'Just a storyteller, not a prophet'

A Writer's Moment: 'Just a storyteller, not a prophet':   “I get up at an unholy hour in the morning; my work day completed by the time the sun rises. I have a slightly bad back which has made an ...

'Just a storyteller, not a prophet'

 

“I get up at an unholy hour in the morning; my work day completed by the time the sun rises. I have a slightly bad back which has made an enormous contribution to American literature.” –  David Eddings

 

Eddings made that statement shortly before his sudden death in 2009, and the contribution about which he spoke was his amazing output of epic fantasy series’, many created in partnership with his wife Leigh, who died in 2006.  

 

Born on this date in 1931, Eddings grew up in the Puget Sound area, and that idyllic and rugged region became the setting for some of his stories, including his first novel High Hunt, the tale of four young men hunting deer. Like many of his later novels, it explores themes of manhood and coming of age.                              

 

While he had moderate success with those works, it was when he turned to fantasy and the writing partnership with his wife that he made his mark.  Eddings' initial call to the world of fantasy came from a doodled map he drew one morning before work – a doodle that later became the geographical basis for a fictional world he called Aloria.

 

A terrific chess player, too, Eddings took Leigh’s suggestion to incorporate elements of chess into the Aloria tales.  From that point until Leigh’s death they joined forces to write 5 best-selling series.  The last – called “The Dreamers” – had characters who could use their dreams to foresee the future.  While his stories often seemed prophetic, David pooh-poohed those who held him up as a great visionary.

 

“I'm a storyteller, not a prophet,” he said.  “I'm just interested in telling a good story.”

 

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Gaining a clear vision of life'

A Writer's Moment: 'Gaining a clear vision of life': “For me, a happy ending is not everything works out just right and there is a big bow, it's more coming to a place where a person has a ...

'Gaining a clear vision of life'

“For me, a happy ending is not everything works out just right and there is a big bow, it's more coming to a place where a person has a clear vision of his or her own life in a way that enables them to kind of throw down their crutches and walk.” – Jill McCorkle

 

McCorkle – born in Lumberton, NC on this date in 1958 – is the award-winning author of a dozen books and a professor of writing at North Carolina State University.  Among her awards is the Dos Passos Prize for writing excellence.

 

She holds the distinction of having her first two novels – The Cheer Leader and July 7^th (both award winners) – published on the same day in 1984.  She has published five other novels and five collections of short stories since, the most recent being 2024’s Old Crimes.   Five of McCorkle’s books have been named New York Times “Notable Books,” and four of her short stories have been named to the “Best American Short Stories” list.   She also earned the New England Booksellers Award for outstanding writing. 

 

McCorkle said she finds inspiration everywhere.  “I always tell my students, 'If you walk around with your eyes and ears open, you can't possibly live long enough to write all the novels you'll encounter.'”

A Writer's Moment: Capturing earth's beauty

A Writer's Moment: Capturing earth's beauty: “I wanted to communicate what I had seen, so that others could see it, too.”  –  Laurie Lee   Born in England in 1914, Lee was a successfu...

Capturing earth's beauty

“I wanted to communicate what I had seen, so that others could see it, too.” –  Laurie Lee

 Born in England in 1914, Lee was a successful novelist and screenwriter but said he loved poetry best.  Many of his poems – written for every season – captured the beauty of the English countryside.  For Saturday’s Poem here is the poem he chose to grace his own tombstone.  

  April Rise

If ever I saw blessing in the air
I see it now in this still early day
Where lemon-green the vaporous morning drips
Wet sunlight on the powder of my eye.

Blown bubble-film of blue, the sky wraps round
Weeds of warm light whose every root and rod
Splutters with soapy green, and all the world
Sweats with the bead of summer in its bud.

If ever I heard blessing it is there
Where birds in trees that shoals and shadows are
Splash with their hidden wings and drops of sound
Break on my ears their crests of throbbing air.

Pure in the haze the emerald sun dilates,
The lips of sparrows milk the mossy stones,
While white as water by the lake a girl
Swims her green hand among the gathered swans.

Now, as the almond burns its smoking wick,
Dropping small flames to light the candled grass;
Now, as my low blood scales its second chance,

                        If ever world were blessed, now it is. 

A Writer's Moment: 'The potency and power of words'

A Writer's Moment: 'The potency and power of words':   “Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one ...

'The potency and power of words'

 

“Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
 

Born on the 4^th of July in 1804, Hawthorne established himself as one of America’s pre-eminent 19^th Century writers with tales about his native New England.

 

His most prominent story that has lasted through the ages is The Scarlet Letter.  Its success catapulted him from near-obscurity to the center of the New England writing movement, which at the time included such prominent writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  

 

He took advantage of his new popularity to rapidly publish or re-publish works like The House of the Seven Gables, Wonder Book for Girls and Boys, and Twice-Told Tales, all still studied in American literature courses. 

 

The great-great grandson of a Salem Witch Trials judge, Hawthorne often focused on Puritanic themes and espoused being pure, accurate and meticulous, especially when it came to the power that writers' words can convey.   

 

“Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy of dishonesty,” he noted. “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

A Writer's Moment: A magic carpet 'wafting us to a special world'

A Writer's Moment: A magic carpet 'wafting us to a special world':   “ A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.”  – Caroline Gordon   ...

A magic carpet 'wafting us to a special world'

 

“A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.” – Caroline Gordon

 

Born in Kentucky in 1895, Gordon was a novelist, literary critic and friends with nearly every famous writer of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.   A great writer herself, she won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1932 and the O.Henry Award for her short story Old Red in 1934.   In 1963 she republished the story as the lead work for a book called Old Red and Other Stories, also an award winner.

 

A “free spirit” (her term for herself), she and husband Alan Tate often hosted major writers in their Kentucky home where “writing was the talk from dawn ‘til dark.”  

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, T.S. Eliot and Robert Penn Warren were frequent visitors, but the most important one for her was Ford Maddox Ford, who she considered her mentor.  It was Ford who counseled and prodded her into completing the novel Penhally, key to gaining her the prestigious Guggenheim.

 

She wrote 9 more novels and dozens of short stories, often autobiographical and drawn from the South, giving the rest of the world an in-depth look at the region.  The Collected Stories of Caroline Gordon, published at the time of her death in 1981, was lauded as one of the 20^th Century’s best short story collections. 

    

Gordon thought of her writing as a form of art.  “And art,” she said, “should never be judged.  It should be the judge of us.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Apply your creativity and do it often'

A Writer's Moment: 'Apply your creativity and do it often':   “Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handli...

'Apply your creativity and do it often'

 “Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant – you just don't know which. You can play it safe and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place.  Trust your demon.” – Roger Zelazny

When writers like George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones) are asked who influenced them, more often than not they’ll say Zelazny.  Born in 1937, Zelazny was a fantasy and science fiction writer extraordinaire.  He wrote dozens and dozens of short stories and novels, including Lord of Light.  In his relatively short life (he died at age 58) he was nominated for three dozen major writing awards and won 14. 

The secret to his success?  “Write often.  I try to sit down and write at least 3 times a day, even if only for a few sentences at a time,” he said.  “Creativity is worthless if you don’t take the time to apply it.”