A Writer's Moment: It's a 'mysterious, surprising act'

A Writer's Moment: It's a 'mysterious, surprising act':   “The act of writing surprises me all the time. A miraculous thing happens when you have an idea and you want to convert it into words . . ...

It's a 'mysterious, surprising act'

 

“The act of writing surprises me all the time. A miraculous thing happens when you have an idea and you want to convert it into words . . . and then you start to create a work of art, and that's another miracle, and it remains mysterious to the writer, or to this writer anyway.” – Janette Turner Hospital

 

Born in Melbourne, Australia in November of 1942, Hospital has lived most of her adult life in the U.S. and Canada, particularly since beginning her writing career in the late 1970s (with short stories) and early 1980s with her first novel, the award-winning The Ivory Swing.   

 

Her numerous stories and novels – led by Borderline and Orpheus Lost – have won many international literary awards, including the Steele Rudd Award for Best Collection of Short Stories.  Also a much sought-after speaker, she has been a professor of writing and a distinguished writer-in-residence at several major universities in Australia, Canada, France, England and the U.S.

 

 “I am always putting my characters into situations of acute moral dilemma to find out what they will do,” Hospital said.  “I would like to think that my writing forces the reader to make inner moral and political choices and alignments, but does not tell the reader what such alignments should be.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The transportation to anywhere'

A Writer's Moment: 'The transportation to anywhere':   “I always read poetry before I write, to sensitize me to the rhythms and music of language.  … A novelist can get by on story, but the poe...

'The transportation to anywhere'

 

“I always read poetry before I write, to sensitize me to the rhythms and music of language.  … A novelist can get by on story, but the poet has nothing but the words.”—Janet Fitch

 

Born in Los Angeles on this date in 1955, Fitch is both an author and creative writing teacher and wrote the bestselling novel White Oleander, also made into a hit movie.   Fitch says that even though she planned on a career as a historian, she found herself pulled toward writing after growing up surrounded by a family of voracious readers.  

 

“When you're a little kid, you are small, your life is small - you're terrifically aware of that. But when you read, you can ride Arabian horses across the desert, you can be a dogsledder.  It takes you anywhere.”  That, she said, is what she strives for her own writing to do.

In addition to her writing, she was a longtime teacher in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.  Among her other popular novels are Paint It Black, named after the Rolling Stones’ song of the same name, and her most recent, Chimes of a Lost Cathedral, a historical novel set in Russia during its civil war.  

 

“I write all the time,” she said, “whether I feel like it or not. I never get inspired unless I'm already writing.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Story of my life'

A Writer's Moment: 'Story of my life':   “Of course a poem is a two-way street. No poem is any good if it doesn't suggest to the reader things from his own mind and recollecti...

'Story of my life'

 

“Of course a poem is a two-way street. No poem is any good if it doesn't suggest to the reader things from his own mind and recollection that he will read into it, and will add to what the poet has suggested.” – James Laughlin

 

Born in Pittsburgh, PA, in November of 1914, Laughlin founded New Directions Publishing and authored 16 bestselling books of poetry (more than 1,200 poems).  Recipient of the National Book Award Program’s “Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award,” he also was honored by The Academy of American Poets with creation of the “James Laughlin Award,” presented annually to honor a poet’s second book.    For Saturday’s Poem, from The Collected Poems of James Laughlin, here is,

 

                                             What The Pencil Writes

                                                        Often when I go out I
                                                        put in my coat pocket

 

                                                        some paper and a pencil
                                                        in case I want to

 

                                                       write something down
                                                       well there they are

 

                                                       wherever I go and as
                                                       my coat moves the pencil

 

                                                       writes by itself
                                                       a kind of gibberish

 

                                                       hieroglyphic which I
                                                       often think as I undress

 

                                                      at night & take
                                                      out those papers with

 

                                                      nothing written on
                                                      them but strange and

 

                                                      meaningless marks is
                                                      the story of my life.

A Writer's Moment: Creating that 'perfect balance'

A Writer's Moment: Creating that 'perfect balance':   “I make money using my brains and lose money listening to my heart. But in the long run my books balance pretty well.” – Kate Seredy   ...