A Writer's Moment: 'It's the greatest university of all'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the greatest university of all':   “In every phenomenon, the beginning remains always the most notable moment.  Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, bu...

'It's the greatest university of all'

 

“In every phenomenon, the beginning remains always the most notable moment.  Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.” – Thomas Carlyle  

 

Born in Scotland on this date in 1795, Carlyle was a philosopher, teacher and journalist whose writing influenced the development of Victorian-era writers like Charles Dickens and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Mesmerized by how “heroes” in our world shaped people’s hopes and aspirations, he not only was an award-winning essayist for several major newspapers, but also wrote a dozen books, the most famous being On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. 

 

Away from his work, Carlyle championed the establishment of great libraries and was instrumental in founding the London Library to make books available to a broader reading public.  

 

“In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream,” he said.  “The greatest university of all is a collection of books.”  

A Writer's Moment: It's 'a kind of magic'

A Writer's Moment: It's 'a kind of magic':   “Writing is literally transformative. When we read, we are changed. When we write, we are changed. It's neurological. To me, this is a...

It's 'a kind of magic'

 

“Writing is literally transformative. When we read, we are changed. When we write, we are changed. It's neurological. To me, this is a kind of magic.” – Francesca Lia Block

 

Born in Los Angeles on Dec. 3, 1962 Block is the author of 31 books (both fiction and non-fiction) and a dozen collections of short stories and poems, many of which have been translated into a wide range of languages around the globe.  

 

Among her many writing awards are the Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award, the Spectrum Award and the Phoenix Award as well as citations from the American Library Association, the School Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly.    She is best known for her Weetzie Bat Young Adult series – for which she’s also written a screenplay – and the novel Blood Roses.  Her most recent book is House of Hearts.

          

A frequent writing workshop instructor, Block has taught creative writing at the University of Redlands and Antioch University, and for UCLA Extension.  She also has served as writer-in-residence at Pasadena City College.

 

 “Read what you love,” she advises.  “(Then) write what you love.” 

A Writer's Moment: 'Best endings . . . or new beginnings?'

A Writer's Moment: 'Best endings . . . or new beginnings?':   “I think the best endings bring you back in rather than close things off with absolute finality. I'm not saying they necessarily have ...

'Best endings . . . or new beginnings?'

 

“I think the best endings bring you back in rather than close things off with absolute finality. I'm not saying they necessarily have to be ambiguous, but we don't always need to know what happens when everyone wakes up tomorrow morning.” – T. C. Boyle

 

Born in New York City on this date in 1948, Thomas Coraghessan Boyle is an award-winning novelist and short story writer who focuses his writing on Baby Boomers – their joys, appetites and addictions – on the ruthlessness and unpredictability of nature and the toll human society sometimes unwittingly takes on the environment.  

 

The author of 19 novels and more than 150 short stories, he won the PEN/Faulkner award for World's End, a historical novel set in upstate New York.  Among his other bestsellers are The Terranauts, The Tortilla Curtain and his most recent, 2023’s Blue Skies.

 

Boyle’s short stories regularly appear in major American magazines like The New Yorker and Harper’s and he has published a dozen collections, his most recent – I Walk Between The Raindrops – in 2022.  A much sought-after speaker, he said,“I love performing in front of an audience. I like the questions; I like controversy.”

 

 “I read widely - for news, the arts, science, for entertainment, and the value of being informed,” Boyle said,  “and, as a fiction writer, I can't help transposing what I learn into the scenario for a novel or story.”

A Writer's Moment: It's a game 'for the reader to discover'

A Writer's Moment: It's a game 'for the reader to discover':   “I write in expectation that readers want to participate in a kind of two-sided game: They are trying to guess what I am up to - what the ...

It's a game 'for the reader to discover'

 

“I write in expectation that readers want to participate in a kind of two-sided game: They are trying to guess what I am up to - what the story's up to - and I'm giving them clues and matter to keep them interested without giving everything away at the start. Even the rules, if any, of the game are for the reader to discover.” – John Crowley

 

Born in Maine on this date in 1942, Crowley went to high school and college in Indiana before moving to New York City “to make movies,” starting his career in documentary films.   In 1975, his first novel The Deep established him in the science fiction and fantasy field and he still writes in those genres, although he also has done well in fiction, and with his frequent essays.  And, he's been a longtime creative writing professor at Yale University.

 

His best-known book is Little, Big, winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.  The book melds the story of a New York family with a “fairy world” community over a hundred-year period and is a terrific study in family dynamics and compassion.  It’s been called “The closest achievement we have to the Alice stories of Lewis Carroll” by one critic.  In 2006 – both in recognition of books like Little, Big and for his many other novels and short stories – Crowley was presented with the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.

 

“I've always had a compassion for characters in novels,” Crowley noted.  “ - The sense that they are, whatever they might think, living in a world that has a shape they don't know and can't finally alter.”