A Writer's Moment: 'Sharing the stories of invisible people'

A Writer's Moment: 'Sharing the stories of invisible people':   “I didn't go into journalism thinking it would solidify my identity. I did it because I needed to make a living, and I was proficient ...

'Sharing the stories of invisible people'

 

“I didn't go into journalism thinking it would solidify my identity. I did it because I needed to make a living, and I was proficient in writing. But in becoming a journalist, I learned about other people who felt like they were on the edges of American mainstream life.” – Alex Tizon

 

Author of the award-winning memoir Big Little Man, Tomas Alexander Asuncion (Alex) Tizon was born in the Philippines on this date in 1959 but studied and lived most of his adult life in the U.S.  A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, he also taught journalism at the University of Oregon, his alma mater.

 

Tizon’s controversial final story, "My Family's Slave,” was published as the cover story of the June 2017 issue of The Atlantic after his sudden death at his home in March of that year.   A coroner’s report said the unexplained death was “from natural causes,” but investigation into the cause is still ongoing. 

 

Winner of the Pulitzer for Investigative Reporting while writing about fraud and mismanagement in the Federal Indian Housing Program -- in a series for The Seattle Times -- Tizon regularly wrote about people from all races and backgrounds who were subsisting on the margins; still a timely topic.

 

“I guess you could say I've written a lot about one thing as a journalist,” he said shortly before his death.  “.. . . it was about telling stories of people who existed outside the mainstream's field of vision.  Invisible people.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Literature of the deepest and highest sense'

A Writer's Moment: 'Literature of the deepest and highest sense':   “I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deep...

'Literature of the deepest and highest sense'

 

“I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.” – Robert Caro

 

Born in New York City on this date in 1935, Caro is best known for his biographies of United States political figures Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson and is the recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes and the National Book Award medal for lifetime achievement.

Caro started in journalism while studying at Princeton University, was a reporter with the New Brunswick (N.J.) Daily Home News, and then served as an investigative reporter with Newsday where he came in contact with urban planner Moses.  Fascinated by Moses’ power, he wrote The Power Broker in 1974, named by the Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest nonfiction books of the 20^th Century.  The Power Broker is widely viewed as a seminal work because it combines painstaking historical research with a smoothly flowing narrative writing style.  

His series of books on The Years of Lyndon Johnson also has been widely praised and won nearly every possible literary award.

 Lauded for his exploration of how power both shapes lives and shapes decisions, he noted, “I never wanted to do biography just to tell the life of a famous man.  I always wanted to use the life of a man to examine political power, because democracy shapes our lives.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Someone has to write them; so why not me?'

A Writer's Moment: 'Someone has to write them; so why not me?':   “I do seem to have a lot of family secrets in my novels. I guess I'm one of those writers who is often writing about the same sort of ...

'Someone has to write them; so why not me?'

 

“I do seem to have a lot of family secrets in my novels. I guess I'm one of those writers who is often writing about the same sort of themes, but taking different angles on them.” – Nancy Werlin

 

Born in Salem, MA on Oct. 29, 1961 Werlin has made her name as a writer of YA novels, winning a National Book Award nomination for The Rules of Survival, and winning an Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel for The Killer's Cousin.  She also was an Edgar award finalist for Locked Inside.   Her newest is Healer and Witch, a suspense thriller.    

 

Werlin started reading at age of 3 and was reading up to 10 books a week by 3^rd grade.  She even read encyclopedias, especially those that contained an appendix of plot synopses for famous novels.  A graduate of Yale (in English) Werlin she now has written 14 novels

 

“By the time I was ten, I knew I wanted to be a writer to create what I loved so much,” she said.  "I just read all the time and it occurred to me that somebody had to write these things—and why shouldn't it be me?"

  

A Writer's Moment: Turning introversion into extroversion success

A Writer's Moment: Turning introversion into extroversion success:   “TV’s not the problem, and I'm tired of it being posed as this antithesis to creativity and productivity.   If TV's getting in you...

Turning introversion into extroversion success

 

“TV’s not the problem, and I'm tired of it being posed as this antithesis to creativity and productivity.   If TV's getting in your way of writing a book, then you don't want to write a book bad enough.” – Andrea Seigel

 

Young Adult novelist Seigel -- born in California on Oct. 28, 1979 -- is a great example of how an introvert can be successful in an extrovert’s world.   Author of 4 novels and many screenplays – the most recent being The Silent Twins – she also has had 2 of her books - The Kid Table and Everybody Knows Your Name - turned into films.

 

Seigal’s also been the subject of a script, featured on the public radio podcast “Mystery Show,” as well as the focus of an episode of NPR’s popular “This American Life,” focusing on a rare neurological disorder from which she suffers. 

 

 Popular with young readers for her realistic portrayals, she said she has simple advice for beginning writers:

“Try to remember that decisions are made by individual, fallible personalities; not gods. It's hard. I know.”

A Writer's Moment: 'All within the communities'

A Writer's Moment: 'All within the communities':   “Snowflakes, leaves, humans, plants, raindrops, stars, molecules, microscopic entities all come in communities.   The singular cannot, in ...

'All within the communities'

 

“Snowflakes, leaves, humans, plants, raindrops, stars, molecules, microscopic entities all come in communities.  The singular cannot, in reality, exist.” – Paula Gunn Allen

 

Born in Albuquerque on Oct. 24, 1939, Gunn Allen was a Native American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist.   A member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, she drew from her people’s oral tradition while exploring Native identity and cultural heritage in her writings.  The most notable of her many collection were Life Is a Fatal Disease and America the Beautiful, published posthumously shortly after her death in 2008.   For Saturday’s Poem here is Gunn Allen’s,

                                                          Grandmother

Out of her own body she pushed
silver thread, light, air
and carried it carefully on the dark, flying
where nothing moved.

 

Out of her body she extruded
shining wire, life, and wove the light
on the void.

 

From beyond time,
beyond oak trees and bright clear water flow,
she was given the work of weaving the strands
of her body, her pain, her vision
into creation, and the gift of having created,
to disappear.

 

After her
the women and the men weave blankets into tales of life,
memories of light and ladders,
infinity-eyes, and rain.

After her I sit on my laddered rain-bearing rug
and mend the tear with string.

A Writer's Moment: 'Flexible ability and no house style'

A Writer's Moment: 'Flexible ability and no house style':   “ Writers should be applauded for their ability to make things up.”  – Emma Donoghue   Born on this date in 1962, playwright, literary...

'Flexible ability and no house style'

 

“Writers should be applauded for their ability to make things up.” – Emma Donoghue

 

Born on this date in 1962, playwright, literary historian, novelist, and screenwriter Donoghue is perhaps best known for her novel Room, a finalist for the prestigious Man Booker Prize.  A massive international best-seller, Room also was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated movie.

 

Since starting her writing career at age 23, Donoghue has written one award winner after another – 25 books in all, including her 2016 psycho-drama The Wonder and her “just on the market” historical fiction book The Paris Express.  Many of her works have been called “historical fiction,” but she’s been hard to categorize – something for which she’s very happy.
 

“You know the way there are two kinds of actors - the De Niro kind who's always De Niro, and then somebody like Daniel Day-Lewis, who transforms himself eerily? Well, I aim to be the Daniel Day-Lewis kind of writer. I don't have a 'house' style.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's a vibration in your bones'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's a vibration in your bones':   “You know how sometimes you hear a chord played on an organ and you can feel it vibrating in your bones? Sometimes when I'm writing, I...

'It's a vibration in your bones'

 

“You know how sometimes you hear a chord played on an organ and you can feel it vibrating in your bones? Sometimes when I'm writing, I can feel my bones vibrating because I'll have a thought or I'll have a character's voice in my head, and that's when I know I'm on the right track.” – Laurie Halse Anderson

 

Born in Potsdam, NY on this date in 1961 Anderson is the award-winning author of numerous children's and young adult novels for which she received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her contributions to young adult literature. 

 

Among her best-known and most honored books are Speak, Wintergirls, and the 3-book Seeds of America or Chain series.  She also has authored a 17-volume Vet Volunteers series and is an advocate for veterans.

 

While she grew up enjoying reading and writing, she always looked upon it as a hobby until after her graduation from Georgetown University.  After beginning writing as a journalist, she switched to children’s picture books, then gravitated to the YA genre, her primary focus since 1999.   After writing her most recent book, the award-winning memoir Shout, she was honored in 2023 with the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award – one of the richest and most prestigious prizes in young people’s literature.   

“The feedback I get is that my books are honest,” Anderson said. “I don't sugar-coat anything. Life is really hard.”

A Writer's Moment: 'At the heart of our towns'

A Writer's Moment: 'At the heart of our towns': “The message is clear: libraries matter. Their solid presence at the heart of our towns sends the proud signal that everyone - whoever they ...

'At the heart of our towns'

“The message is clear: libraries matter. Their solid presence at the heart of our towns sends the proud signal that everyone - whoever they are, whatever their educational background, whatever their age or their needs - is welcome.” –  Kate Mosse

 

Born in Chichester, England on this date in 1961, Mosse is a champion of libraries everywhere, but also a writer of books – both fiction and nonfiction – and numerous short stories.   She is perhaps best known for her 2005 archaeological mystery novel Labyrinth, now translated into nearly 40 languages.

 

Although known for her adventure and ghost fiction, inspired by real history, Mosse's first two works were non-fiction: Becoming A Mother and The House: Behind the Scenes at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, published to accompany the BBC show The House.

 

Winner of many awards, she frequently speaks and writes on behalf of women in writing and the arts and is co-founder/creator of Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, one of Britain’s most prestigious writing awards. The author of numerous essays and stories – many included in anthologies and collections – Mosse is a frequent spokesperson on behalf of access to reading and libraries.  

 

“Free and fair access to books - to reading,” she said, “is a right and one we should fight for.”      

A Writer's Moment: 'Making your reader listen'

A Writer's Moment: 'Making your reader listen':   “If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab th...

'Making your reader listen'

 

“If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained at a very high level.” – John le Carre

 

Born in Poole, England on Oct. 19, 1931 one-time spy le Carre, whose real name was David John Moore Cornwell, established himself as one of the greatest “espionage” authors of all time, and is listed by the London Times as one of the 50 greatest English writers of the 20th Century.   

 

Most of le Carre's novels – including his final one Silverview, published shortly after his death in 2020 – are set in the Cold War Era (1945–91).  They feature British MI-6 agents, unheroic political functionaries aware of the moral ambiguity of their work and engaged in psychological more than physical drama.   His most well-known book is The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, a 60-year bestseller and also an award-winning movie.

 

“Like every novelist, I fantasize about film.  But novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion,” le Carre said. “They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from, but they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.

 

 “Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.”  

A Writer's Moment: 'Ordinary language to the Nth power'

A Writer's Moment: 'Ordinary language to the Nth power':   “Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough...

'Ordinary language to the Nth power'

 

“Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.” – Paul Engle

 

Born in Cedar Rapids, IA on this date in 1908, Engle was a poet, editor, teacher, literary critic, novelist and playwright. He served as long-time director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and co-founded the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program.   By the time of his death in 1991, he had authored a dozen collections of poetry, a novel, a memoir, an opera libretto, a children's book and dozens of articles and reviews for magazines and journals around the globe.    

 

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

 

                                                             Twenty Below

Twenty below, I said, and closed the door,
A drop of five degrees and going down.
It makes a tautened drum-hide of the floor,
Brittle as leaves each building in the town.
I wonder what would happen to us here
If that hard wind of winter never stopped,
No man again could watch the night grow clear,
The blue thermometer forever dropped.

I hope, you answered, for so cruel a storm
To freeze remoteness from our lives too cold.
Then we could learn, huddled all close, how warm
The hearts of men who live alone too much,
And once, before our death, admit the old
Need of a human nearness, need of touch.

 

A Writer's Moment: 'It's your sound, so use it'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's your sound, so use it':   “I just believe that young people need to be able to learn how to write in their own voice. Just like a musician, you pride yourself on ha...

'It's your sound, so use it'

 

“I just believe that young people need to be able to learn how to write in their own voice. Just like a musician, you pride yourself on having your own distinct sound.” – Terry McMillan

 

Born in Port Huron, MI on Oct. 18, 1951 McMillan grew up in Michigan, earned a degree from UC-Berkeley, and started her writing career in her late 30s.  Her “breakthrough” book was 1992’s Waiting to Exhale, credited with contributing to a shift in Black popular cultural consciousness and the visibility of a female Black middle-class identity. 

   

And while she drew on her own experiences for part of that book, it was her semi-autobiographical novel How Stella Got Her Groove Back that firmly cemented her writing as a force to be reckoned with.  The most recent of her now-published dozen novels is It’s Not All Downhill From Here.

 

Characterized by relatable female protagonists, her books, she says, reflect a part of herself, something she thinks all writers have incorporated into their work.   

 

“Few writers are willing to admit (that) writing is autobiographical,” she said.  “But it mostly is.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the deepest reflection of all'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the deepest reflection of all':   “Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shap...

'It's the deepest reflection of all'

 

“Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.” – Meg Rosoff

 

Born in Boston on this date in 1956, Rosoff has split her adulthood between the U.S. and Great Britain, primarily residing in London since age 32.   A multi-award winner for many of her works, she is perhaps best known for her Young Adult novel How I Live Now (also an award-winning movie); Just in Case, named by British librarians as a  “Best Children's Book Published in the UK,” and Picture Me Gone, a finalist for the U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature.   Her latest is the 2022 novel Friends Like These.   

 

Rosoff is a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society of Literature, and has been selected for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the richest prize in children’s literature given by the Swedish government to honor the famed Swedish children’s author and creator of Pippi Longstocking. 

 

“One of the more interesting things I've learnt since becoming a writer is that if you like the book, you'll generally like the person,” Rosoff noted.   “It doesn't always work in reverse - there are huge numbers of lovely people out there writing not very good books.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Immoral, illegal or fattening'

A Writer's Moment: 'Immoral, illegal or fattening': “Success comes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to wh...

'Immoral, illegal or fattening'

“Success comes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed.” –  P. G. Wodehouse

 

Born in England on this date in 1881, Wodehouse was one of the most widely read and quoted humorists of the 20th century.  The son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, he studied business and worked in banking for a time before realizing that what he most enjoyed was writing.  “I know I was already writing stories when I was 5,” he said. “I don’t know what I did before that.  Just loafed I suppose.”

 

No loafing was involved from that point forward as he authored more than 90 books, 40 plays, and 200 short stories and other writings right up until his death in 1975.

 

While most of Wodehouse's fiction is set in England (he is credited with creating the stereotypical English butler character Jeeves), he spent much of his life in the U.S. and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. He also wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies during and after WWI – together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern – that played an important part in the development of modern American musicals and musical comedy.

 

Since Wodehouse's death there have been numerous adaptations and dramatizations of his work on television, and the Oxford English Dictionary contains over 1,750 quotations from Wodehouse, illustrating terms from crispish to zippiness.

 

“Everything in life that’s any fun,” Wodehouse wrote shortly before his death, “is either immoral, illegal … or fattening.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Trying out' other lives

A Writer's Moment: 'Trying out' other lives:   “Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better by far to write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing ...

'Trying out' other lives

 

“Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better by far to write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.” – Katherine Mansfield

 

Born on this date in 1888, Mansfield – the pen name of Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp – was raised in New Zealand and had her first stories published at age 16 in the High School Reporter, a New Zealand-wide journal

 

Barely out of high school, she wrote a hard-hitting series of stories taking New Zealand’s white elite to task for their treatment of the native Maori.  At age 19, finding herself the target of severe criticism and exclusion, she decided to emigrate to England.  There, she not only advanced her career but also became close friends with such modernist writers as D.H. Lawrence (author of Lady Chatterley’s Lover) and Virginia Woolf, and quickly became one of England’s most popular modernist writers.   

 

But just when she was getting into her most prolific writing period – in the late 19-teens – she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died from the disease in 1923.  John Middleton Murry, her husband and editor of the popular magazine Rhythm, then led an effort to posthumously publish many of her writings throughout the 1920s – continuing her popularity and legacy.

 

In 1973, Mansfield was the subject of the BBC miniseries A Picture of Katherine Mansfield starring Vanessa Redgrave, and in 2011 the film Bliss focused on her early beginnings as a writer.  Writing, Mansfield said, was not only her life but her chance to experience other’s lives.  

 

“Would you not like to try all sorts of lives?” she asked.  “That is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.”

A Writer's Moment: It's the power of 'language'

A Writer's Moment: It's the power of 'language':   “I think with all my books, language has been their subject as much as anything else. Language can elide or displace or sideline whole gro...

It's the power of 'language'

 

“I think with all my books, language has been their subject as much as anything else. Language can elide or displace or sideline whole groups of people. You can't necessarily change the way language is used, but if it becomes something you're conscious of... that gives you a certain power over it.” – Kate Grenville

 

Born in Australia in October of 1950, Grenville has authored 15 books – including fiction, non-fiction, biography and books about the writing process.  Winner of both the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and Britain’s prestigious Orange Prize, she has had her works published worldwide.  Her most recent novel is 2023’s Restless Dolly Maunder, winner of Australia’s Prime Minister Award (2024) for Literary Fiction.

 

Grenville’s writing career started in film before she wrote a collection of highly regarded short stories in the early 1980s.  Her 1985 novel Lilian’s Story established her reputation as one of Australia’s best fiction writers.  That multiple award-winning book also was made into a successful movie. 

 

In the 2000s, Grenville has explored Australia’s colonial past and relationships among its peoples in her acclaimed books The Secret River, The Lieutenant and Sarah Thornhill.  A teacher of writing, too, Grenville has written or co-written several widely used books about the writing process.  

 

“I love music, too,” Grenville said, “and I think there's probably no coincidence there, that the rhythm of the words is almost as important as the words themselves.   And when you can get the two working together, which usually takes me about 20 goes, I feel a huge satisfaction.” 

A Writer's Moment: 'Go ahead . . .risk curiosity'

A Writer's Moment: 'Go ahead . . .risk curiosity':   “Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”  – e....

'Go ahead . . .risk curiosity'

 

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” – e. e. cummings

 

Born in Cambridge, MA on Oct. 14, 1894, Edward Estlin "E. E." Cummings wrote nearly 3,000 poems, 2 autobiographical novels, 4 plays and several essays and was one of the eminent “voices” of 20^th century English-language literature.  Cummings' poetry often dealt with themes of love and nature but he said some were “just for fun.”  For Saturday’s Poem, here is,

 

                                                If

If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and a lie warn’t a lie,
Life would be delight, --

But things couldn’t go right
For in such a sad plight
I wouldn’t be I.

If earth was heaven and now was hence,
And past was present, and false was true,
There might be some sense
But I’d be in suspense
For on such a pretense
You wouldn’t be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
 Things would seem fair, – 

Yet they’d all despair,
For if here was there
We – wouldn’t be we.

A Writer's Moment: 'Just choose what you have'

A Writer's Moment: 'Just choose what you have':   “When a man ain't got no ideas of his own, he'd ought to be kind o' careful who he borrows 'em from.”  – Owen Wister   ...

'Just choose what you have'

 

“When a man ain't got no ideas of his own, he'd ought to be kind o' careful who he borrows 'em from.” – Owen Wister

 

Born in Philadelphia in 1864, Wister was a Harvard classmate and close friend of Theodore Roosevelt and has often been called “The father of the Cowboy novel.” It was a title given to him after he wrote The Virginian, a book that not only spawned the Cowboy genre but also was made into several movies and a long-running TV series.

 

Wister started writing about the West in 1891 after half-a-dozen years of traveling to and living in Wyoming and the western Dakotas.    Like Roosevelt, Wister was fascinated with the culture, lore and terrain of the region.   In addition to Roosevelt he was lifelong friends with the great Western artist Frederic Remington, who he met near Yellowstone in 1893.  

The Virginian, written in 1902, is set during Wyoming’s 4-year Johnson County War between large and small landowners in north-central Wyoming, the area where Wister spent most of his time.  Wildly successful, the book was reprinted a remarkable 14 times in its first 8 months alone and has continuously been in print ever since.   All told, Wister wrote 8 novels, 13 nonfiction books – including one about his friendship with Roosevelt – and 6 collections of short stories.  He also authored numerous essays and poems, several plays and 6 operas.

 

Since 1991, The Western Writers of America have presented The Owen Wister Award to the “Book of the Year set in the American West.” This year’s award went to Craig Johnson, who writes the Longmire series and lives in the same Johnson County featured by Wister in The Virginian.

 

Wister, who died in 1938, said he felt “destined” to write about the West.  “When you can’t have what you choose,” he said, “you just choose what you have.”

A Writer's Moment: The art of 'making every scrap useful'

A Writer's Moment: The art of 'making every scrap useful':   “The great advantage of being a writer is that you're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is usef...

The art of 'making every scrap useful'

 

“The great advantage of being a writer is that you're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.” – Graham Greene

 

Born in England on this date in 1904, Greene was believed to have worked as a spy for the British government during World War II and beyond while continuing to hone his writing career, which ultimately was one of the greatest of the 20th century.  One fellow writer said he was the most accomplished living novelist in the English  language. 

  

Shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Greene produced 25 novels that mostly explored the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world.  He also wrote short stories, essays, plays and movie scripts and worked as a journalist during a 67-year career.  He was working as an editor on The Times of London when his first novel, The Man Within, was published in 1929 to immediate critical acclaim.   In 1941, he won the prestigious Hawthornden Prize for his masterpiece The Power and the Glory.           

 
Considered one of the most “cinematic” of 20^th century writers (nearly all of his novels and many of his short stories were made into movies or television shows), an accomplishment he said came about because he strived for "lively" and sometimes controversial characters.   

 

“(You know) the moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about,” he said, “that moment he's alive and you just have to leave it to him to do whatever he prefers.”

A Writer's Moment: 'I want people to get lost in my stories'

A Writer's Moment: 'I want people to get lost in my stories':   “I just want people to get lost in the story and at the end kind of sag and say, 'That was fun.' It's hardly my desire for the...

'I want people to get lost in my stories'

 

“I just want people to get lost in the story and at the end kind of sag and say, 'That was fun.' It's hardly my desire for them to sit and think, 'What a great literary image.'” – Michael Palmer

 

Born in Springfield, MA on Oct. 9, 1942, Palmer leveraged his medical background as an Emergency Room doctor and Internist into writing 21 medical thrillers and three other mystery-thrillers, a number of which made the New York Times bestseller List.   His final novel (in 2018 and co-authored with his son Daniel) was The First Family.

 

Best known among his works were Side Effects, a novel based on covert Nazi medical testing in WWII, and Extreme Measures, featuring a promising young doctor who discovers criminal activities by his hospital’s leadership team.  Extreme Measures was also made into a popular movie.

 

In addition to his writing and medical practice, Palmer served as an associate director of the Massachusetts Medical Society Physician Health Services, devoted to helping physicians troubled by mental illness, physical illness, behavioral issues, and chemical dependency.  He died in October of 2013 after overcoming his own substance abuse issues and credited writing with getting him back on track.  He told the Associated Press that writing suspense thrillers served as a kind of long-term therapy for him before it became his profession.

 

“I loved the feeling of being in control," he said, "even when my life was not.”

A Writer's Moment: 'First write a gripping yarn'

A Writer's Moment: 'First write a gripping yarn': “My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea...

'First write a gripping yarn'

“My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.” – David Brin

 

Born in California on Oct. 6, 1950 Brin is an astro-physicist who turned his talents to writing and became an award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards – basically a “clean sweep” of all the top awards in his genre.

His Campbell Award winning novel The Postman was adapted as a feature film that starred Kevin Costner.  His nonfiction book The Transparent Society won both the Freedom of Speech Award (from the American Library Association) and the McGannon Communication Award.   

 

Many of Brin's works focus on the impact on human society of technology humankind develops for itself, most noticeably in his novels The Practice Effect, Glory Season and Kiln People.   During the past few years he has been writing what he calls “The High Horizon” series – Colony High in 2021 and Castaways of New Mojave (with Jeff Carlson) in 2023.   

Brin helped establish the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination (UCSD), serves on the advisory board of NASA’s Innovative and Advanced Concepts group, and frequently does “futuristic” consulting for businesses and industry and said he’s glad he’s a scientist first.

 

“There's no doubt,” he said, “that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction.”   

A Writer's Moment: 'The Spirit of Place'

A Writer's Moment: 'The Spirit of Place':   “It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a stor...

'The Spirit of Place'

 

“It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a story, a narrative of adventure and of vision, of character and of incident. It is also a portrait of the great general drama of the human spirit.” – Peter Ackroyd

 

Born in England on Oct. 5, 1949 Ackroyd is a novelist, critic and biographer of award-winning books on William Blake, Charles Dickens and T.S. Eliot.  His historical novels also have earned him great acclaim, including the Somerset Maugham Award and two Whitbread Awards, for Hawksmoor and The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde.  He is noted for the depth of his research and volume of his work – some 20 novels, several books of poetry and more than 40 nonfiction books, the latest being The English Soul: Faith of a Nation.

 

His novel The Great Fire of London, a reworking of Dickens’ Little Dorrit (a terrific example, by the way, of the “serial” writing style that first made Dickens popular), first put Ackroyd on the writing map.   That book set the stage for his many novels dealing with the complex interaction of time and space and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place.” 

  

“To be a writer was always my greatest aim,”Ackroyd said.  “I remember writing a play about Guy Fawkes when I was 10. I suppose it's significant, at least to me, that my first work should be about a historical figure.”

A Writer's Moment: 'We are listening'

A Writer's Moment: 'We are listening':       “A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.”  ...

'We are listening'

 

  “A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.” – Diane Ackerman

 

Poet, essayist and naturalist – known for her wide-ranging curiosity and poetic explorations of the natural world –Ackerman was born in Waukegan, IL on Oct. 7, 1948.   Among her best-known poetry collections (of the 22 she has published) is Jaguar of My Destroyer: New and Collected Poems.  Also known for her study of (and essays on) the senses, she said she is fascinated by how they affect people’s lives.   

“We live on the leash of our senses,” she said.   For Saturday’s poem, here is Ackerman’s,

  We Are Listening 

As our metal eyes wake

to absolute night,

where whispers fly

from the beginning of time,

we cup our ears to the heavens.

We are listening

 

on the volcanic lips of Flagstaff

and the fields beyond Boston

and in a great array that blooms

like coral from the desert floor,

on highwire webs patrolled

by computer wires in Puerto Rico.

 

We are listening for a sound

beyond us, beyond sound,

 

searching for a lighthouse

in the breakwaters of our uncertainty,

an electronic murmur,

a bright, fragile I am.

 

Small as tree frogs

staking out one end

of an endless swamp,

we are listening

through the longest night

we imagine, which dawns

between the life and times of stars.

A Writer's Moment: 'Where are the readers?'

A Writer's Moment: 'Where are the readers?':   “I didn't mean to spend my life writing American history, which should have been taught in the schools, but I saw no alternative but t...

'Where are the readers?'

 

“I didn't mean to spend my life writing American history, which should have been taught in the schools, but I saw no alternative but to taking it on myself. I could think of a lot of cheerier things I'd rather be doing than analyzing George Washington and Aaron Burr. But it came to pass, that was my job, so I did it.” – Gore Vidal

 

Born at West Point, NY on this date in 1925 (his father was a military officer serving as the first instructor of aeronautics in the Military Academy’s history at the time), Vidal became one of the most well-known and sometimes controversial writers in American history.  He authored novels, essays, screenplays and stage plays while also taking on a larger-than-life public role as an intellectual, debater and historian.

 

Vidal wrote 28 nonfiction books, 32 novels, 8 plays, and 16 screenplays and teleplays.  Many of his books were bestsellers, but especially gripping were his historical novels Burr, Lincoln, 1876 and Empire.  And he won the Nonfiction National Book Award for United States: Essays 1952–92.

 

“I never wanted to be a writer,” he said.  “I mean, for me, that was the last thing I wanted.”  Just before his death in 2012 he did an interview lamenting the state of “Reading in America.”

 

“You hear all this whining going on, 'Where are our great writers?'” he said.  “The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?”

A Writer's Moment: 'Where miracles happen'

A Writer's Moment: 'Where miracles happen':   “The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.” – Thomas Wolfe   Born in...

'Where miracles happen'

 

“The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.” – Thomas Wolfe

 

Born in Ashville, NC on this date in 1900, Wolfe is considered one of America’s leading 20^th century writers.  William Faulkner called him “the greatest talent of our generation,” and his home state often lists him as the greatest writer ever to come from there.

 

Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels as well as many short stories, dramatic works, and novellas before his early death (at age 37 from tuberculosis).  His works are often studied for their interesting mix of writing styles and for their reflection on America’s rapidly changing culture in the 1920s and ’30s.

 

Wolfe studied theatre and planned to be a playwright, but he could never keep his works short enough for the popular stage, so he turned to fiction.  His first novel, Look Homeward, Angel, was nearly 350 thousand words before being drastically edited by the famous Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins (also the editor for both Hemingway and Fitzgerald).  Often at odds with people in his hometown (both for including versions of them in his works and for excluding them in others), he based some of You Can’t Go Home Again on that turbulent relationship.    

 

Wolfe lived for a time in Europe, seemingly estranged from his home country, but after witnessing the growing brutality of Hitler’s Germany, he came back to America to stay.  

 

“America - it is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country,” he said.   “It is the only place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time.”