A Writer's Moment: 'A joy full of excitement'

A Writer's Moment: 'A joy full of excitement':   “Learning should be a joy and full of excitement. It is life's greatest adventure; it is an illustrated excursion into the minds of th...

'A joy full of excitement'

 

“Learning should be a joy and full of excitement. It is life's greatest adventure; it is an illustrated excursion into the minds of the noble and the learned.” – Taylor Caldwell

 

Born in England this date in 1900, Caldwell emigrated to the U.S. in 1907 and spent many of her formative years living in poverty after her father died.  That experience, she said, not only shaped her values but also her expectations – to never again live in fear of want.

 

A writer even before leaving England (where she won a Charles Dickens Prize for young writers) Caldwell began her prolific professional writing career after earning a degree from the University of Buffalo.  Her first novel Dynasty of Death was an instant bestseller and established her as a major new writer.  Over the next 50 years – she died in 1985 – Caldwell published some 50 books under her own name and the pen names Marcus Holland, Max Reiner and J. Miriam Reback.

 

Noted for masterful blending of historical events with her own vivid imagination, she wrote such bestsellers as Dear and Glorious Physician (about Saint Luke), The Earth is the Lord's (about Genghis Khan), and Captains and the Kings.   Her books have sold upward of 40 million copies worldwide. 

She believed firmly in education and hard work.  “I wanted to acquire an education, work extremely hard, and never deviate from my goal to make it.”

A Writer's Moment: 'To cherish the earth'

A Writer's Moment: 'To cherish the earth':   “To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.”  –  Wendell Berry   In Thurs...

'To cherish the earth'

 

“To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.” –  Wendell Berry

 

In Thursday’s post I wrote about Berry’s many contributions to literature and the environment.  The author (who died Monday) created more than 50 books of fiction, essays and poetry – led by award-winning works like The Broken Ground and The Country of Marriage.  He wrote about the turning of the seasons, routines of the farm, life of the family, and the spiritual aspects of the natural world, urging mankind to live in harmony with the earth, or perish.

 

For Saturday’s Poem, from his Collected Poems: 1957-1982, here is Berry’s,

        The Peace of Wild Things

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.   I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light.    For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

A Writer's Moment: 'Hurling words into the darkness'

A Writer's Moment: 'Hurling words into the darkness':   “Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.”  – Richard Wright   Born in Roxie, Miss., o...

'Hurling words into the darkness'

 

“Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.” – Richard Wright

 

Born in Roxie, Miss., on this date in 1908, Wright authored at least two American literary classics – the novel Native Son, published in 1940, and his autobiographical Black Boy in 1945.   Self-taught as a writer, his works have been studied and held up as “keys to helping change the conversation about race relations in the United States.”  

 

Much of his work focuses on the discrimination and violence suffered by African Americans during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries.   Over the course of his relatively short life (he died in 1960), Wright authored hundreds of journalistic pieces, many short stories, 17 novels and nonfiction books, poetry, and dozens of hard-hitting essays.  In the process he won numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship.  In 2010 he was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. 

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo,” Wright said.  “And if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A writer, not a talker'

A Writer's Moment: 'A writer, not a talker':   “Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.”  – Wendell Berry   Born in Louisville, KY in August of 1934, ...