A Writer's Moment: Is it 'procrastination' or 'detailed creation?'

A Writer's Moment: Is it 'procrastination' or 'detailed creation?':   “I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story.” – Alan Garner   Bo...

Is it 'procrastination' or 'detailed creation?'

 

“I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story.” – Alan Garner

 

Born in the front room of his grandmother’s house in Cheshire, England in October of 1934, Garner grew up near that northwestern English city, where he has chosen to set most of his books.  Best known for his children's fantasy novels and his re-tellings of traditional British folk tales, his work is firmly rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native county.  

 

Noted for his “slow, but steady” writing style, he takes his time but always produces winners, earning him almost every major writing award for young people’s literature in the process, including both the Carnegie Medal and The Guardian Prize.  He was runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award.

  

Garner has produced 18 books and 9 collections of short stories.  His most well-known are The Owl Service, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Stone Book, and Treacle Walker, a finalist for the Booker Prize.  In 2024, a week before his 90th birthday, Garner published the memoir Powsels and Thrums.  Framed and inspired by his grandfather, the book contains poems and short essays on the people and events in Garner’s life starting at Manchester Grammar in 1946.

  

As for being a procrastinator, Garner said, “Look, if you are going to write, nothing will stop you.  And if you are not going to write, nothing will make you.” 

A Writer's Moment: Banking on 'the creative imagination of the reader'

A Writer's Moment: Banking on 'the creative imagination of the reader':   “If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab th...

Banking on 'the creative imagination of the reader'

 

“If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear, and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained at a very high level.” – John le Carre

 

Born in Poole, England on this date in 1931, le Carre’s wrote The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, a 60-year (and counting) bestseller that also was turned into an award-winning movie.    A one-time spy himself, le Carre, whose real name is David John Moore Cornwell, established himself as one of the greatest “espionage” authors of all time. 

 

Most of le Carre's novels are set in the Cold War Era (1945–91) and feature British MI-6 agents, unheroic political functionaries engaged in psychological more than physical drama.  His 1986 novel A Perfect Spy, cited as his most autobiographical espionage novel, chronicles the boyhood moral education of his character Magnus Pym and how it leads to his becoming a spy.

 

Le Carre earned his bachelor’s degree from Oxford University which awarded him an Honorary Doctorate degree in 2012.  In 2020, shortly before his death, he was given the Olof Palme Award by Sweden and donated the $100 thousand prize to Doctors Without Borders.  Le Carre wrote 26 novels, the final one, Silverview. published posthumously in 2021.  Thirteen of them were made into movies or television series.

 

“Like every novelist, I fantasize about film” he said.  “But, novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion.  They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from, but they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.”

A Writer's Moment: Chronicling 'A familiar daily struggle'

A Writer's Moment: Chronicling 'A familiar daily struggle':   “If someone is alone reading my poems, I hope it would be like reading someone's notebook. A record. Of a place, beauty, difficulty. A...

Chronicling 'A familiar daily struggle'

 

“If someone is alone reading my poems, I hope it would be like reading someone's notebook. A record. Of a place, beauty, difficulty. A familiar daily struggle.” – Fanny Howe

Born in Buffalo, NY on Oct. 15, 1940, Howe was awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize by the Poetry Foundation “For lifetime accomplishments that warrant extraordinary recognition.”  One of America’s most widely read poets, Howe also had a distinguished record as an essayist and novelist and had more than 50 books published.   Her final book, released earlier this year following her death in 2025, is the poetry collection This Poor Book.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Howe’s,

                                    Footsteps

I have never arrived
into a new life yet.

Have you?

Do you find the squeak
of boots on snow

excruciating?

Have you heard people
say, It wasn't me,

when they accomplished
a great feat?

I have, often.
But rarely.

•

Possibility
is one of the elements.
It keeps things going.

The ferry
with its ratty engine
and exactitude at chugging
into blocks and chains.

Returning as ever
to mother's house
under a salty rain.

Slave up, slave down.

A Writer's Moment: 'Fire, joy and no apologies'

A Writer's Moment: 'Fire, joy and no apologies':   “Forget market or publishers or whatever. Just write with fire and joy, and in my own experience, those are the stories of mine people hav...