A Writer's Moment: 'Drawing from life . . . as you see it'

A Writer's Moment: 'Drawing from life . . . as you see it':   “[The writer] must essentially draw from life as he sees it, lives it, overhears it or steals it, and the truer the writer, perhaps the bi...

'Drawing from life . . . as you see it'

 

“[The writer] must essentially draw from life as he sees it, lives it, overhears it or steals it, and the truer the writer, perhaps the bigger the blackguard. He lives by biting the hand that feeds him.” – Charles R. Jackson

 

Born in New Jersey on April 6, 1903 Jackson wrote several bestselling novels, including The Lost Weekend, also adapted into an Academy Award-winning Best Picture.  The novel – his first – and subsequent film thrust Jackson into a limelight in which he wasn’t always comfortable, although he did enjoy a fairly distinguished lecture circuit career from the book and film successes.

 

At Syracuse University he studied journalism and wrote for a number of newspapers before gravitating to books – both writing and selling them.  He wrote several more novels, a number of well-received short stories, and had a very successful stint as a scriptwriter for radio soap operas.  

 

Hospitalized for a number of years with tuberculosis and alcoholism, Jackson took about a 15-year break before writing one more successful book, the semi-autobiographical novel A Second-Hand Life, shortly before his death in 1968.

 

During his long hiatus, Jackson blamed the demise more to his inability to handle his early successes rather than his  illnesses.  “The writer knows his own worth,” he lamented, “and to be overvalued can confuse and destroy him as an artist.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A wise woman, indeed'

A Writer's Moment: 'A wise woman, indeed':   “A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim.”  –  Maya Angelou Born in St. Louis on Ap...

'A wise woman, indeed'

 

“A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim.” –  Maya Angelou

Born in St. Louis on April 4, 1928, Angelou was a poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist and recipient of dozens of awards.  She was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom and more than 50 honorary degrees before her death in 2014.    For Saturday’s Poem, here is Angelou’s,                                                                                                                         

                             When You Come

            When you come to me, unbidden,
                         Beckoning me
                         To long-ago rooms,
                         Where memories lie.

                         Offering me, as to a child, an attic,
                         Gatherings of days too few.
                         Baubles of stolen kisses.
                         Trinkets of borrowed loves.
                         Trunks of secret words,

                          I CRY.

A Writer's Moment: Creating 'a unique bond of trust'

A Writer's Moment: Creating 'a unique bond of trust':   “There's a unique bond of trust between readers and authors that I don't believe exists in any other art form.  As a reader, I tru...

Creating 'a unique bond of trust'

 

“There's a unique bond of trust between readers and authors that I don't believe exists in any other art form.  As a reader, I trust a novelist to give me his or her best effort, however flawed.” – Dan Simmons

 

Born in Peoria, IL on this date in 1948, Simmons is an award-winning author of science fiction, horror and fantasy, sometimes all within the same novel. A typical example of Simmons' intermingling of genres is his World Fantasy Award winner Song of Kali, a tale surrounding a mysterious cult that worships the Indian god Kali. 

 

After a number of modest successes, Simmons became internationally renowned for Hyperion, which won both the Hugo and Locus Awards for the best science fiction novel.    He followed that book’s success with 3 more books and several short stories in a series that concluded with another award winner, The Rise of Endymion, also winner of the Locus and a finalist for the Hugo.  

 

Simmons also writes mysteries and thrillers and said he enjoys moving among genres. His latest novel is the just-released (2025) historical thriller Omega Canyon.   

 

“I think it's one of the strangest attributes of this profession,” he said, “that when we writers get exhausted writing one thing we relax by writing another.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A fountain of gladness'

A Writer's Moment: 'A fountain of gladness':   “The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer ap...