A Writer's Moment: 'The most important thing in the world'

A Writer's Moment: 'The most important thing in the world':   “I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching mi...

A Writer's Moment: 'A single lovely action'

A Writer's Moment: 'A single lovely action':   “All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.” – James Russell Lowell   Born in Cambridge, Mass.,...

'A single lovely action'

 

“All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.” – James Russell Lowell

 

Born in Cambridge, Mass., in February of 1819, Lowell was associated with the Fireside Poets, among the first American poets to rival the popularity of British poets like Byron, Shelley and Keats.  The American writers used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside.   Lowell believed the poet played an important role as prophet and critic of society, using poetry for reform, particularly in abolitionism.    For Saturday’s Poem, here is Lowell’s,

                                                   Aladdin

When I was a beggarly boy
And lived in a cellar damp,
I had not a friend nor a toy,
But I had Aladdin's lamp;
When I could not sleep for the cold,
I had fire enough in my brain,
And builded, with roofs of gold,
My beautiful castles in Spain!

Since then I have toiled day and night,
I have money and power good store,
But I'd give all my lamps of silver bright
For the one that is mine no more;
Take, Fortune, whatever you choose,
You gave, and may snatch again;
I have nothing 'twould pain me to lose,
For I own no more castles in Spain!

'The most important thing in the world'

 

“I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.” – John Steinbeck

 

Born in Salinas, Calif., on this date in 1902, Steinbeck has been called “the embodiment of the American novelist” based on his many masterpieces like The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and East of Eden.   The author of 27 books – 16 novels, 5 collections of creative short stories, and 6 books of non-fiction including the autobiographical Travels With Charley – Steinbeck's works are found around the globe, published in virtually every language with more 200 million copies in print.

 

In addition, a remarkable 17 were adapted to film, many giving generations an up-close insiders’ look at the people, places and ravages of The Great Depression.  Those stories, though, took their toll on him.  “In utter loneliness,” he wrote, “a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.”

 

Despite his many awards and accolades, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, he often questioned his own writing.   

 

“The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world,”  Steinbeck said.  “And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Always better for the experience'

A Writer's Moment: 'Always better for the experience':   “It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.”  – Elizabeth George   Born in Warren, Ohio on this date in 1949, George has earne...

'Always better for the experience'

 

“It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.” – Elizabeth George

 

Born in Warren, Ohio on this date in 1949, George has earned a basketful of awards, including Great Britain’s Anthony and Agatha Awards and France’s LeGrand Prix de Literature Policiere – a writing version of an Academy Award – for her mysteries.

 

A master of “journaling” to keep track of day-to-day happenings around her, George capitalized on the technique while writing about “ordinary and extraordinary” days in the life of an English detective 6,000 miles away from her home, her “Inspector Lynley” series (also an award-winning television series).

 

“I’ve always liked creating a journal.  It’s like the way I clear my throat,” she said.  “I write a page every day, maybe 500 words (that’s two pages double-spaced).  It could be about something I’m specifically worried about in a new novel; it could be a question I want answered; it could be something that’s going on in my personal life.  I just use it as an exercise.”

 

George, who said she knew by age 7 that she wanted to be a writer, earned degrees and worked in teaching (twice named Teacher of the Year for California’s largest county) and counseling/psychology before turning to writing about Detective Lynley.   To date the BBC has adapted 11 and created a new 4-part series about the detective.  All told, she’s written 27 novels, 2 nonfiction books and 3 collections of short stories.  Her latest being 2025’s A Slowly Dying Cause.

 

“I try to create a challenge for myself in each book,” she said.  “And sometimes, believe me, I just kick myself afterwards and say, ‘Why on earth did you ever attempt this, you idiot!’  But I’m always better for the experience.”

A Writer's Moment: Creating characters 'that entertain and inspire'

A Writer's Moment: Creating characters 'that entertain and inspire':   “All I wanted to do was read, to be told stories. Stories were full of excitement and emotions and characters that entertained and often i...

Creating characters 'that entertain and inspire'

 

“All I wanted to do was read, to be told stories. Stories were full of excitement and emotions and characters that entertained and often inspired.” – Cynthia Voigt

 

Born in Massachusetts on this date in 1942, Voigt wrote the best-selling and award-winning Young Adult books, Homecoming and Dicey’s Song – the latter winning the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature and the former adapted into a movie.  Voigt also received the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association recognizing her contribution in writing for teens.

 

 Drawn to writing at an early age, Voight said, “By the time I started high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer.”  After college, she worked in advertising, then teaching, first in New Mexico then Maryland before writing Homecoming.   The first in what became known as “The Tillerman Cycle” (a 7-book series about four children from a family named Tillerman), she soon was concentrating on writing full time.

 

Voigt said words don’t always “flow” from her imagination, but she has written 40 books, the latest being 2024’s When Wishes Were Horses.     

 

 “I have ideas that I have trouble starting to write,” she said.  “But I'm the kind of person who tends to finish everything she starts out of sheer stubbornness.”  

A Writer's Moment: 'The skeleton architecture of our lives'

A Writer's Moment: 'The skeleton architecture of our lives':   “Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a brid...

'The skeleton architecture of our lives'

 

“Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.” – Audre Lorde

 

Born in New York City in February oif 1934, Lorde was a writer and civil rights activist best known for poetry that dealt with issues related to civil rights, feminism, and the exploration of black female identity.   Among her most powerful and oft-quoted writings are the award-winning book of poetry, Coal, and her book on women’s rights, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches.   She also wrote and spoke eloquently about battling cancer, a disease from which she died at age 58.

 

For Saturday’s Poem here is Lorde’s,

 

                                                            Coping

It has rained for five days
running
the world is
a round puddle
of sunless water
where small islands
are only beginning
to cope
a young boy
in my garden
is bailing out water
from his flower patch
when I ask him why
he tells me
young seeds that have not seen sun
forget
and drown easily.

A Writer's Moment: 'It's what you can't stop thinking about'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's what you can't stop thinking about': “You have your identity when you find out, not what you can keep your mind on, but what you can't keep your mind off.” – A. R. Ammons   ...

'It's what you can't stop thinking about'

“You have your identity when you find out, not what you can keep your mind on, but what you can't keep your mind off.” – A. R. Ammons

 

Born in North Carolina on this date in 1926, Ammons worked as an elementary school principal and a glass company executive before turning his full attention to literature – both teaching and writing.   From 1964 to 1998 he taught creative writing at Cornell University while authoring hundreds, if not thousands, of poems.

 

Ammons wrote about nature and the self, themes that had preoccupied Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman and that remained the central focus of his work.  His Collected Poems, 1951–1971 (a terrific read) won a National Book Award.   And his Selected Poems is an excellent introduction to his works   In his work, Ammons focuses on change, both in nature and in daily life.           

                                                               

 Shortly before his death in 2001 Ammons was asked: “What is poetry?”    

                                                               

 “Poetry," he replied, "is the music of words . . . the linguistic correction of disorder.” 

A Writer's Moment: 'It's not a matter of choice'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's not a matter of choice': “Writing is not a matter of choice. Writers have to write. It is somehow in their temperament, in the blood, in tradition.”  – N. Scott Moma...

'It's not a matter of choice'

“Writing is not a matter of choice. Writers have to write. It is somehow in their temperament, in the blood, in tradition.” – N. Scott Momaday

 

Native American Momaday, a Kiowa was a novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet and winner of both the Pulitzer Prize (for his novel House Made of Dawn) and National Medal of Arts.  While “House” has been called “A Classic,” he is perhaps best known for the novel/memoir/folklore work The Way to Rainy Mountain.

 

Momaday grew up on Reservations in Arizona and New Mexico, and earned degrees from the University of New Mexico Stanford, where he also began his writing career, focusing first on poetry.  

 

Also a renowned teacher and speaker, he was one of the nation’s first Native American academics and created a curriculum based on American Indian literature and mythology.   In addition to his national honors, he was awarded some two dozen honorary degrees and was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Selected for the Native American Hall of Fame in 2018, Momaday died in 2024.

 

 “I am interested in the way that we look at a given landscape and take possession of it in our blood and brain,” Momaday said.   “None of us lives apart from the land entirely; such an isolation is unimaginable.”

A Writer's Moment: 'That thing humans do'

A Writer's Moment: 'That thing humans do':   “Literature has as one of its principal allures that it tells you something about life that life itself can't tell you. I just thought...

'That thing humans do'

 

“Literature has as one of its principal allures that it tells you something about life that life itself can't tell you. I just thought literature is a thing that human beings do.” – Richard Ford

 

Born in Mississippi on this date in 1944, Ford is a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and short story writer best known for his novels The Sportswriter, Independence Day, The Lay of the Land, and Let Me Be Frank With You.  He also wrote the best-selling short story collection Rock Springs, which has many widely anthologized stories.

 

The grandson of a railroad engineer, Ford started his adult life working for the railroad before deciding to further pursue his love of literature by studying English Literature at Michigan State University.  

 

“I started reading literature at 17 or 18, and I felt this extra beat to life,” he said.  “Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.”  And so he became a writer, although he took a swing at law school first before dropping out to attend a creative writing program at the University of California.  His first books were well received but not big sellers, so he went to work as a sportswriter, which eventually led to his first bestseller, The Sportswriter.

 

Journalism and his personality have provided plenty for his writing base.  “My job is to have empathy and curiosity for things that I've never done,” he said.  “Also, I'm a person whom people talk to.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Dreams or Swords'

A Writer's Moment: 'Dreams or Swords':   All books are either dreams or swords; you can cut, or you can drug, with words.”  – Amy Lowell   Pulitzer Prize winner Lowell, whose ...

'Dreams or Swords'

 

All books are either dreams or swords; you can cut, or you can drug, with words.” – Amy Lowell

 

Pulitzer Prize winner Lowell, whose poetry falls into “The Imagest School,” was born in February of 1874, one of the many members of the Massachusetts’ Lowell family to make an impact on writing and education.  

 

Lowell was an early adherent of "free verse” and one of its major champions.   Although she didn’t start writing poetry until age 28 and died young (at age 51), Lowell produced more than a dozen major books of poetry, reprinted in The Complete Poetical Works of Amy Lowell, published in 1955.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Lowell’s, 

                                                               Solitaire

When night drifts along the streets of the city,
And sifts down between the uneven roofs,
My mind begins to peek and peer.
It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,
And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples,
Amid the broken flutings of white pillars.
It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,
And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.
How light and laughing my mind is,
When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles,
And the city is still!

A Writer's Moment: The creation of an 'unlucky' myth

A Writer's Moment: The creation of an 'unlucky' myth:   Leave it to a writer to create a myth that dogs us to this day.  It’s often believed the   publication of Bostonian Thomas W. Lawson’s pop...

The creation of an 'unlucky' myth

 

Leave it to a writer to create a myth that dogs us to this day.  It’s often believed the publication of Bostonian Thomas W. Lawson’s popular novel Friday the 13^th  in 1907 contributed immensely to the creation of the myth. 

 

Born in Charlestown, Mass., in February of 1857, Lawson was intensely superstitious and made certain – as a promotional move – to not only name his book Friday the Thirteenth but also release it on that day.  It's the story of an unscrupulous stockbroker (also a profession he had in addition to writing) who brings down Wall Street on Friday the 13th.

Lawson chose to publish on Dec. 13, 1907, which ironically was the same day the only 7-masted schooner ever built - the Thomas W. Lawson (in which Lawson had invested heavily) - was wrecked off the coast of Sicily.  The triumph of his book's launch was quickly tempered by news that his ship had gone down just hours after the book's appearance.  

 

The mystique surrounding that combination of events led to the book becoming immensely popular and spawning dozens, if not hundreds, of other stories that led to an ongoing phobia about the day.   Up until that day in 1907 there is little, if any, mention of Friday the 13^th being a day of which to beware.    By the way, Lawson is said to have firmly believed in Lucky Number 7.  He was the author of 7 books.

 

P.S.  This is one of those lucky years when Friday the 13^th’s comes in back-to-back months.  Friday, March 13th, is just around the corner.

A Writer's Moment: 'The books we should cherish'

A Writer's Moment: 'The books we should cherish':   “The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.” – Judy Blume   Born in ...

'The books we should cherish'

 

“The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.” – Judy Blume

 

Born in Elizabeth, NJ on this date in 1938, Blume has authored dozens of novels that have tackled sensitive topics and sometimes been a source of controversy.  But there’s little doubt that they resonate with young people.  To date her 30 books - mostly written for teens -  have had sales approaching 100 million, translated into 32 languages.

 

Blume said she hopes her stories have opened the doors to teens to gain a better understanding of themselves and issues that surround them.    Racism, divorce, bullying, sexuality, all have all been “on the table” for Blume’s characters. “Generating discussion,” she said, is her primary goal.  She has been recognized as one of the world’s great “storytellers” who bring kids into the reading world, winning more than 90 literary awards, including three lifetime achievement awards and the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards Award for "significant and lasting contribution to Young Adult literature.”

 

“Any book that gets kids to read are books that we should cherish,” she noted.  “We should be thankful for them”

A Writer's Moment: 'Listen with both the ear and the eye'

A Writer's Moment: 'Listen with both the ear and the eye': “Read something of interest every day - something of interest to you, not to your teacher or your best friend or your minister/rabbi/priest....

'Listen with both the ear and the eye'

“Read something of interest every day - something of interest to you, not to your teacher or your best friend or your minister/rabbi/priest. Comics count. So does poetry. So do editorials in your school newspaper. Or a biography of a rock star. Or an instructional manual. Or the Bible.” – Jane Yolen

 

Born in New York City on this date in 1939, Yolen was immersed in writing, the daughter of a journalist and public relations writer.  She started her own writing in elementary school and created a “newspaper” in her Manhattan apartment building while still in junior high, a time when she also wrote a multi-page essay about New York State’s manufacturing industry – in rhyme.

 

In high school, she won a Scholastic Magazine poetry contest and edited and wrote for the school newspaper, something she continued at Smith College.  There, she also wrote a book of poetry, was president of the Press Board, and penned song lyrics for theater productions in which she was involved.   On her 21^st birthday, she sold her first book (nonfiction) about female pirates titled Pirates in Petticoats.  “After that,“ she said, “I was a book writer for good.”

Yolen has authored or edited some 400 books and short stories, her best-known being The Devil's Arithmetic, a Holocaust novella; the Nebula Award-winning short story Sister Emily's Lightship; a novelette Lost Girls; and her children’s books Owl Moon, The Emperor and the Kite, and “Commander Toad” series.   She reads everything aloud, no matter whether a novel, an essay, or a children’s picture book, and does the same when creating her own works.   

 

“I believe the eye and ear are different ‘listeners’,” she explained.  “So as writers, we have to please both.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's an unusual quantity of a usual quality'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's an unusual quantity of a usual quality':   “I have never been bored an hour in my life. I get up every morning wondering what new strange glamorous thing is going to happen and it h...

'It's an unusual quantity of a usual quality'

 

“I have never been bored an hour in my life. I get up every morning wondering what new strange glamorous thing is going to happen and it happens at fairly regular intervals.” – William Allen White

 

Born in Emporia, Kansas on this date in 1868, White became America’s most renowned small town newspaper editor.  Along the way, he joined with Theodore Roosevelt to become a leader of the “Progressive” movement, won two Pulitzer Prizes and became a best-selling author.  His Emporia Gazette became the most famous “small town” newspaper in America and Emporia a “must stop” place for political leaders and celebrities. 

 

White became a key character in my novel And The Wind Whispered after I learned that he traveled to the Black Hills to spend time in Hot Springs, the community in which my book is set.   I was struck by how that trip – and his meeting there with Roosevelt – may have had some influence on his journalism and political thought.  He felt Roosevelt embodied America and was greatness personified.   “Greatness, generally speaking,” he said, “is an unusual quantity of a usual quality grafted upon a common man.”

 

As he neared death in 1944, White wrote how grateful he was to have lived and worked in America, and he said he looked forward to every day regardless of what it might bring.  

 

“I am not afraid of tomorrow,” he said, “for I have seen yesterday, and I love today!”

A Writer's Moment: 'Little by little they lead to the truth'

A Writer's Moment: 'Little by little they lead to the truth':   “Science … is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.”  – ...

'Little by little they lead to the truth'

 

“Science … is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.” – Jules Verne

Born in the seaport city of Nantes, France on Feb. 8, 1828 Verne grew up around sailors and their tales.  His earliest stories were about the sea and the often-fantastical sea creatures sailors were said to encounter, tales later repeated in his book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and alluded to in Journey to the Center of the Earth.   Those two novels along with From Earth to the Moon led to him being dubbed one of the “Fathers of Science Fiction,” along with H.G. Wells and Hugo Gernsback.

 

The author of 62 books, he is the second-most translated author in history – only behind Agatha Christie.  He also wrote numerous plays, short stories, essays, poetry, songs, and scientific, artistic and literary studies. His work has been adapted for film and television since the beginning of cinema, as well as for comic books, theater, opera, music and video games.

 

In 1890, Verne’s fictional character Phileas Fogg became the centerpiece of a real-life challenge.   Journalist Nellie Bly of The New York World decided to try to "best" the character’s Around The World in 80 Days record, reporting on her escapades as she traveled.  She completed the trip in 72 days, establishing herself as both a daredevil adventurer and one of the most-read reporters of her day.

 

During the trip, she stopped in France to visit Verne and was shocked to find that he produced his masterpieces in a small, nondescript room on a beat-up old typewriter at an ordinary-sized desk. 

 

“It’s not the place you write that matters,” Verne told his aspiring young American visitor.  “It’s what you produce there that counts.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Like a broken-winged bird'

A Writer's Moment: 'Like a broken-winged bird':   “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”  – Langston Hughes Hughes, a poet, social activ...

'Like a broken-winged bird'

 

“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” – Langston Hughes

Hughes, a poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist, was born Feb. 1, 1902 in Joplin, Mo., and became world famous as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance Movement in New York City.   His poetry and fiction portrayed the lives of the working-class blacks in America as full of struggle, joy, laughter, music, and pride in the African-American identity and its diverse culture.    For Saturday’s Poem, here is Hughes’,

                                                 I Dream A World

I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn.
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free.
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!

A Writer's Moment: And he did

A Writer's Moment: And he did:   "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of be...

And he did

 

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” – Charles Dickens

 

Opening lines of books often can make or break them, and one of the most famous of all time despite its “run-on” nature, is Dickens’ opening to A Tale of Two Cities.  It’s the intro to what would become one of the 100 greatest books of all time – about the universal nature of the book, the French Revolution, and the drama depicted within its pages. 

 

Born in Portsmouth, England on Feb. 7, 1812, Dickens was the most popular novelist of his time and remains one of the best known and most read.  His works have never gone out of print and have been continually adapted  for the screen since the medium was invented – the most famous being the beloved A Christmas Carol.  He wrote 15 novels, 5 novellas and hundreds of short stories and nonfiction articles.  He also was a tireless letter writer; campaigned vigorously for social reforms and was a popular speaker in appearances around the world..

 

And he created dozens of memorable characters, many who took on lives of their own and became part of our vernacular.  Think “Scrooge,” for example.  His biographer Claire Tomalin regards him as the greatest creator of character in English fiction after only William Shakespeare.  Dickens gave the world a view of Victorian England that remains as vivid today as it was in its own time.

 

“The most important thing in life,” Dickens said, “is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will’.” 

A Writer's Moment: 'Setting a pattern for success'

A Writer's Moment: 'Setting a pattern for success':   “When I get started each day, I read through and correct the previous day's 2,000 words, then start on the next. As I reach that figur...

'Setting a pattern for success'

 

“When I get started each day, I read through and correct the previous day's 2,000 words, then start on the next. As I reach that figure, I try to simply stop and not go on until reaching a natural break. If you just stop while you know what you're going to write next, it's easier to get going again the next day.” – Neal Asher

Born in England on Feb. 4, 1961, Asher is a leader in the world of science fiction writing.   The son of educators "and sci-fi" fans, he has been writing since secondary school, although he didn’t turn to it seriously until he was nearly 30.  After working as a machinist and machine programmer, then as a full-time gardener, he wrote his first short story and had instant success.  After a few more, he turned to novels and never looked back.  

Since 1989, he’s turned out some 50 novels and dozens and dozens of short stories – many of his books set in a sci-fi world he calls “The Polity.”  His most recent book, the start of his new “Time Shadow” series, is Dark Diamond.    Asher credits his success to hard work and a regular writing routine (that 2000 daily words mentioned above), and keeping an active, inquiring mind. 

 

“For me,” he said, “the writing process is the same as the reading process. I want to know what happens next."

A Writer's Moment: 'Tangling with human emotions'

A Writer's Moment: 'Tangling with human emotions':   “I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.”  – James A. Michener   Born in Pennsylvania ...

'Tangling with human emotions'

 

“I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.” – James A. Michener

 

Born in Pennsylvania on this date in 1907 Michener wrote 40-plus books, hundreds of essays and short stories, and several screenplays and radio pieces. Most of his popular novels, which have sold over 75 million copies, are lengthy family sagas based on detailed historical, cultural, and even geological research.  

 

Michener’s writing career began during his naval service during World War II.   His first effort (at age 40) was the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tales of the South Pacific, also the foundation for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s long-running award-winning Broadway show and movie South Pacific.    His book Centennial, set in my adopted state of Colorado, was written to coincide with the state’s 100^th and nation’s 200^th birthday and is still exciting and relevant in this 150^th and 250^th anniversary year.

 

I first got turned on to both Michener and my own itch to become a writer when my high school English teacher handed me a copy of his book Hawaii and said, “Read this and maybe someday you can write like he does.  You have it in you.” 

 

“I think the crucial thing in the writing career is to find what you want to do and how you fit in,” Michener offered as advice to writers.  “What somebody else does is of no concern whatever except as an interesting variation.”  

A Writer's Moment: 'Be brave enough to speak the truth'

A Writer's Moment: 'Be brave enough to speak the truth':   “ Be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur.  You must then live it to its fullest.”  – Muriel Sp...

'Be brave enough to speak the truth'

 

“Be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur.  You must then live it to its fullest.” – Muriel Spark

 

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland on Feb. 1, 1918, Spark applied that philosophy to an award-winning career as a novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist.  Her writing (and editing) career grew out of her work as a British Intelligence Officer during World War II when she realized she had a knack for the clever use of words.   

 

Starting as an editor of Poetry Review magazine, she soon was writing poems of her own, authoring several critically acclaimed poetry collections and books of criticism before turning to short stories and then novels in the late 1950s.  Her first effort, The Comforters, – built around the clever plot of a young woman who becomes aware that she is a character in a novel – firmly established her credentials as a major writer.

 

Perhaps best known for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – also adapted into both a play and a movie – she went on to write 22 novels and 21 books of poetry and nonfiction.  Her thriller The Mandelbaum Gate also was a multiple award winner.  Shortly before her death in 2006, she was named for the Golden PEN Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature and ranked 8^th by The London Times among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.”   

“To be a successful writer,” Spark said, “one must be brave enough to speak the truth, even when it is uncomfortable or unpopular.”