A Writer's Moment: 'Always better for the experience'

A Writer's Moment: 'Always better for the experience':   “It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.”  – Elizabeth George   Born in Warren, Ohio on this date in 1949, George has earne...

'Always better for the experience'

 

“It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.” – Elizabeth George

 

Born in Warren, Ohio on this date in 1949, George has earned a basketful of awards, including Great Britain’s Anthony and Agatha Awards and France’s LeGrand Prix de Literature Policiere – a writing version of an Academy Award – for her mysteries.

 

A master of “journaling” to keep track of day-to-day happenings around her, George capitalized on the technique while writing about “ordinary and extraordinary” days in the life of an English detective 6,000 miles away from her home, her “Inspector Lynley” series (also an award-winning television series).

 

“I’ve always liked creating a journal.  It’s like the way I clear my throat,” she said.  “I write a page every day, maybe 500 words (that’s two pages double-spaced).  It could be about something I’m specifically worried about in a new novel; it could be a question I want answered; it could be something that’s going on in my personal life.  I just use it as an exercise.”

 

George, who said she knew by age 7 that she wanted to be a writer, earned degrees and worked in teaching (twice named Teacher of the Year for California’s largest county) and counseling/psychology before turning to writing about Detective Lynley.   To date the BBC has adapted 11 and created a new 4-part series about the detective.  All told, she’s written 27 novels, 2 nonfiction books and 3 collections of short stories.  Her latest being 2025’s A Slowly Dying Cause.

 

“I try to create a challenge for myself in each book,” she said.  “And sometimes, believe me, I just kick myself afterwards and say, ‘Why on earth did you ever attempt this, you idiot!’  But I’m always better for the experience.”

A Writer's Moment: Creating characters 'that entertain and inspire'

A Writer's Moment: Creating characters 'that entertain and inspire':   “All I wanted to do was read, to be told stories. Stories were full of excitement and emotions and characters that entertained and often i...

Creating characters 'that entertain and inspire'

 

“All I wanted to do was read, to be told stories. Stories were full of excitement and emotions and characters that entertained and often inspired.” – Cynthia Voigt

 

Born in Massachusetts on this date in 1942, Voigt wrote the best-selling and award-winning Young Adult books, Homecoming and Dicey’s Song – the latter winning the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature and the former adapted into a movie.  Voigt also received the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association recognizing her contribution in writing for teens.

 

 Drawn to writing at an early age, Voight said, “By the time I started high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer.”  After college, she worked in advertising, then teaching, first in New Mexico then Maryland before writing Homecoming.   The first in what became known as “The Tillerman Cycle” (a 7-book series about four children from a family named Tillerman), she soon was concentrating on writing full time.

 

Voigt said words don’t always “flow” from her imagination, but she has written 40 books, the latest being 2024’s When Wishes Were Horses.     

 

 “I have ideas that I have trouble starting to write,” she said.  “But I'm the kind of person who tends to finish everything she starts out of sheer stubbornness.”  

A Writer's Moment: 'The skeleton architecture of our lives'

A Writer's Moment: 'The skeleton architecture of our lives':   “Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a brid...

'The skeleton architecture of our lives'

 

“Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.” – Audre Lorde

 

Born in New York City in February oif 1934, Lorde was a writer and civil rights activist best known for poetry that dealt with issues related to civil rights, feminism, and the exploration of black female identity.   Among her most powerful and oft-quoted writings are the award-winning book of poetry, Coal, and her book on women’s rights, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches.   She also wrote and spoke eloquently about battling cancer, a disease from which she died at age 58.

 

For Saturday’s Poem here is Lorde’s,

 

                                                            Coping

It has rained for five days
running
the world is
a round puddle
of sunless water
where small islands
are only beginning
to cope
a young boy
in my garden
is bailing out water
from his flower patch
when I ask him why
he tells me
young seeds that have not seen sun
forget
and drown easily.

A Writer's Moment: 'It's what you can't stop thinking about'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's what you can't stop thinking about': “You have your identity when you find out, not what you can keep your mind on, but what you can't keep your mind off.” – A. R. Ammons   ...