A Writer's Moment: 'Maddening, and yet so fascinating'

A Writer's Moment: 'Maddening, and yet so fascinating':   “For every path you choose, there is another you must abandon, usually forever.” – Joan D. Vinge   Born in Baltimore on this date in ...

'Maddening, and yet so fascinating'

 “For every path you choose, there is another you must abandon, usually forever.” – Joan D. Vinge

 

Born in Baltimore on this date in 1948, Vinge is best known for such works as her Hugo Award-winning novel The Snow Queen and its sequels, and her novelization of movies like Tarzan: King of the Apes, Lost In Space and Cowboys & Aliens. 

 

After studying at San Diego State and starting her career as an anthropologist, Vinge turned to writing and made it a full-time career change after the success of Snow Queen in 1980.  Besides her award for that novel, she also won a Hugo for Best Novelette for her tale "Eyes of Amber” and has been nominated for several other Hugo and Nebula Awards.   Her novel Psion was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association.   She has written 11 novels, 3 collections of short stories, 4 of poetry and 12 TV and movie adaptations.   She has been lauded for her strong, engrossing characters.  

 

“The contradictions are what make human behavior so maddening,” she said, “and yet so fascinating, all at the same time.”

A Writer's Moment: 'What writing is all about, after all'

A Writer's Moment: 'What writing is all about, after all':   “The thing is, emotion - if it's visibly felt by the writer - will go through all the processes it takes to publish a story and still ...

'What writing is all about, after all'

 

“The thing is, emotion - if it's visibly felt by the writer - will go through all the processes it takes to publish a story and still hit the reader right in the gut. But you have to really mean it.” – Anne McCaffrey

 

 Born in Massachusetts on this date in 1926, McCaffrey was one of the all-time great writers of fantasy and science fiction (she died in 2011).  Best known for her Dragonriders of Pern fantasy series, she became the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction and a Nebula Award for excellence in science fiction. Her 1978 novel The White Dragon was one of the first science-fiction books to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.

 

A Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductee, she was only the 22^nd person ever selected as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.  

 

A graduate of Radcliffe, McCaffrey studied music and contemplated an operatic career before becoming a writer.  After achieving her writing success, she moved to Ireland where she became a naturalized citizen and lived until her death in 2011.    

 

McCaffrey set Sci-Fi standards for writing with emotion and putting the reader directly into the worlds she created. “That's what writing is all about, after all,” she said, “making others see what you have put down on the page and believing that it does, or could, exist and you want to go there.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's why novelists write'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's why novelists write':   “There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.”  – John Fowle...

'It's why novelists write'

 

“There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.” – John Fowles

 

Born in England on this date in 1926, Fowles wrote many thoughtful and thought-provoking things about the profession of writing, even though the writing world wasn’t his first career choice.  Fowles set out to be a teacher, taking a job at a small school in Greece that later became the setting for his book The Magus.  Even though he had that novel ready to go in 1960, he held off trying to get it published in order to finish a second manuscript called The Collector.  It was a “second” first novel that would establish his international reputation as a major writer. 

 

Published in 1963, The Collector went on to a massive release, noted by the publisher as "probably the highest price that had hitherto been paid for a first novel.”  By 1965 it also had been made into a nail-biting movie. 

 

With his reputation established, he then published The Magus, which was a moderate hit, and followed them both with his blockbuster The French Lieutenant's Woman.  Released to critical and popular success, it was eventually translated into a dozen languages and adapted as a feature film starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.  

 

In his lifetime he published 19 books and while fiction was his forte’, he also was a noted essayist, taught English as a foreign language to immigrant children, and earned further accolades as a poet – something he said should not be considered unusual.    

 

“We all write poems,” he noted.  “It is simply that real poets are the ones who write in words.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Good People, Great Impact'

A Writer's Moment: 'Good People, Great Impact':   “My doctrine is this: If we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt. C...