A Writer's Moment: 'The task of a writer'

A Writer's Moment: 'The task of a writer':   “The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.”  – Thomas Mann   Born in Lubeck, Germany on June 6, 18...

'The task of a writer'

 

“The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.” – Thomas Mann

 

Born in Lubeck, Germany on June 6, 1875 Mann was a journalist, novelist, short story writer, philanthropist and essayist who started writing in the mid-1890s while living in Munich.   Winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature, he was one of the most outspoken critics of Adolph Hitler, ultimately having to flee to Czechoslovakia and then the United States where he became a naturalized American citizen and lived until shortly before his death in 1955.

 

His successful creative writing career, which began with his novel Buddonbrooks – about a merchant family and reflective of his own childhood roots – was marked primarily by his short stories, which were popular throughout his lifetime and continue to be studied in writing classes today. 

 

"In books we never find anything but ourselves,” Mann said.  “Strangely enough, that always gives us great pleasure, and (yet) we say the author is a genius."

A Writer's Moment: 'It's in the heart of me'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's in the heart of me':   "The three foundations of judgement: Bold Design, Constant Practice, and Frequent Mistakes." –   John Masefield   Born in Ledbur...

'It's in the heart of me'

 

"The three foundations of judgement: Bold Design, Constant Practice, and Frequent Mistakes." –  John Masefield

 

Born in Ledbury, England on June1, 1878 Masefield was longtime Poet Laureate of Great Britain and remains one of those poets who had the uncommon sense to take every ordinary thing and make it shine.   Masefield loved the sea and wrote of it often in both prose and poetry.  His “Sea Fever” with the famous line “I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky” is probably one of the most quoted lines in poetry.   For Saturday’s Poem, here is another of Masefield’s terrific short poems,

The Wanderer

A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels, 

I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels; 

I hunger for the sea's edge, the limit of the land, 

Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.

Oh I'll be going, leaving the noises of the street, 

To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet; 

To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride, 

Oh I'll be going, going, until I meet the tide.

And first I'll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls, 

The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls, 

The songs at the capstan at the hooker warping out, 

And then the heart of me'll know I'm there or thereabout.

Oh I am sick of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick, 

For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick; 

And I'll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels, 

For a wind's in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels.

A Writer's Moment: 'Seeing your life in a different way'

A Writer's Moment: 'Seeing your life in a different way':   I wasn't one of those kids who grew up wanting to write or who read a particular book and thought: 'I want to do that!' I alwa...

'Seeing your life in a different way'

 

I wasn't one of those kids who grew up wanting to write or who read a particular book and thought: 'I want to do that!' I always told stories and wrote them down, but I never thought writing was a career path, even though, clearly, someone was writing the books and newspapers and magazines.” – Gayle Forman 

 

Born in Los Angeles on this date in 1970 Forman has authored 14 books led by the YA novel If I Stay, which both topped the New York Times bestseller list and also was made into a popular film.   The story is about a 17-year-old girl named Mia who has been involved in a tragic car accident and lies in a coma fully aware of what is going on around her.  It earned Forman several "book of the year" awards..

 

Forman began her career writing for Seventeen, with most of her articles focusing on young people and social concerns.   For a number of years, in addition to her YA writing, she has been a successful freelance journalist for publications like Glamour, The Nation, and Elle.   Her most recent book is 2025’s After Life.

 

Now a resident of Brooklyn, NY, married and the mother of two girls, Forman said she found her niche in YA writing by zeroing in on themes that give you an in-depth and often wrenching look at her protagonists’ lives.

 

“I think we like movies and books that give us this emotionally moving experience,” she said. “Where you feel like a slightly different person, and you see the world a little different after you finish. It lets you see your own life in a different way, and it actually makes you feel really good.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Control of the final results'

A Writer's Moment: 'Control of the final results':   “ The one thing that makes writing a better pastime than reading is that you can make things turn out the way you want in the end!”  –  Ge...