A Writer's Moment: 'This is what you do'

A Writer's Moment: 'This is what you do': “ I write because I write - as anyone in the arts does,   You're a painter because you feel you have no choice but to paint. You're ...

'This is what you do'

“I write because I write - as anyone in the arts does,  You're a painter because you feel you have no choice but to paint. You're a writer because this is what you do.”  – Richard Price

 

Born in The Bronx, NY on Oct. 12, 1949 Price is perhaps best known for novels like Clockers and Lazarus Man (his newest out in 2024) and screenwriting efforts like The Color of Money., Not a writer to get pigeonholed into any particular genre, he also has written feature stories, magazine essays, and radio programs, and taught writing at Columbia, Yale and NYU.

 

Price earned degrees at Cornell and Columbia and also studied at Stanford before launching his successful writing career with The Wanderers, a coming-of-age story set in The Bronx and written when he was just 24 years old.   That book and Clockers also were adapted into movies.  

 

To date he has written 10 novels, 12 screenplays and 5 television screenplays.  His work has been praised for its blend of humor, suspense, dialogue, and character development.   The recipient of an American Arts & Letters Award and inductee into the American Arts & Letters Academy (in 2009), he lives and works in Harlem. 

 

“I think the definition of an artist is not necessarily tied into excellence or talent,” he said.  “An artist is somebody who, if you took away their freedom to make art, would lose their mind.”

A Writer's Moment: It's because 'of the love of words'

A Writer's Moment: It's because 'of the love of words':   “I always loved words.  I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them.” – Anne...

It's because 'of the love of words'

 

“I always loved words.  I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them.” – Anne Rice 

 

Born in New Orleans in October of 1941, Rice is probably best known for her popular and influential series of novels, The Vampire Chronicles, revolving around the central character of Lestat.   Two of the books – Interview With The Vampire and Queen of the Damned – were made into movies, and many were adapted later as comic books, adding to their luster and ongoing popularity.

 

In addition to the 13 books in the “Chronicles” series, Rice authored two dozen more novels, with sales of some 100 million copies, placing her among the most popular Amcrican authors in the 20^th and early 21^st centuries.  The winner of several Bram Stoker Awards for superior achievement, she was named for the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award, its highest honor, in 2004.   

 

While many of her books are set in New Orleans, she lived and wrote in California where she earned a master’s degree in creative writing at San Francisco State University.  Rice said one of the biggest influencers on her writing was British writer Charles Dickens.

 

 “Everyone in his time admired him,” she said, “but I think . . . he's not spoken of enough.  I claim Dickens as a mentor . . . one of my driving forces.”  

A Writer's Moment: 'What if we take a risk?'

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

'What if we take a risk?'

 

“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 in October of 1894, Edward Estlin "E. E." Cummings, who died in 1962, wrote nearly 3,000 poems; 2 autobiographical novels; 4 plays, and several essays and was one of the eminent “voices” of 20^th century literature.  While his poetry often dealt with love and nature, he said some, “were just for fun.”  For Saturday’s Poem, here is cummings’

                                        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: 'Someone to tell it too'

A Writer's Moment: 'Someone to tell it too':   “Someone to tell it too is one of the fundamental needs of human beings.” – Miles Franklin   Born in New South Wales, Australia in Oct...