A Writer's Moment: 'Revealing whatever you might find'

A Writer's Moment: 'Revealing whatever you might find':   “Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, I've never had the sense I was 'making up' a character. It feels more like watching pe...

'Revealing whatever you might find'

 

“Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, I've never had the sense I was 'making up' a character. It feels more like watching people reveal themselves, ever more deeply, more intimately.” – Kathryn Harrison

 

Born in Los Angeles in March of 1960, Harrison earned degrees at both Stanford and the University of Iowa, where she first studied in that school’s famed Writers’ Workshop.  Her debut novel, Thicker Than Water, was an instant success and paved the way for a career that (to date) includes 8 novels and 9 nonfiction books, including one about true crime.  Her most recent nonfiction work is On Sunset.

 

Almost as well known for her essays, which have been included in many anthologies and magazines like Harper's, The New Yorker and Vogue, she also is a regular reviewer for The New York Times Book Review.   And, she teaches memoir writing in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at New York’s Hunter College. 

 

“I admire writers who succeed at what I consider the first demand of art,” she said.  “(And that is) that the artist vivisect himself without pity, without hesitation, determined to reveal whatever he might find.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's how we go on'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's how we go on':   “A good novel is an out-of-self experience. It lifts you off the ground so that you have the sensation of flying. It says, 'Look at th...

'It's how we go on'

 

“A good novel is an out-of-self experience. It lifts you off the ground so that you have the sensation of flying. It says, 'Look at the world around you; learn from the people in these pages, neither quite me nor quite you, how life is lived in so many different ways.’” – Julia Glass

 

In 2002, Glass’s debut novel Three Junes got off to a very good liftoff, indeed, winning the National Book Award for Fiction.  Since then, she’s led a very good writing life having half-a-dozen more novels published, all to excellent reviews, her most recent being Vigil Harbor.

 

Born on this date in 1956, Glass said, “My life has been wonderful, but if I had to live the life of someone else, I'd gladly choose that of Julia Child or Dr. Seuss: two outrageously original people, each of whom fashioned an idiosyncratic wisdom, passion for life, and sense of humor into an art form that anyone and everyone could savor.”

 

A native of Boston who grew up in Belmont, Mass., she took a couple of divergent life paths, first moving to Brooklyn, NY, after college (at Yale) to become a painter, then trying her hand at magazine editing at Cosmopolitan before taking a stab at creative writing.  She now lives back in Massachusetts, teaches fictional writing at Emerson College, and continues to write as a journalist and novelist.

 

“All the best novels are about one thing: How we go on,” she said.  “The characters must survive the fallout of their own cowardice, folly, denial or misguided passion. They squander what matters most, and still they pick up the pieces.”

A Writer's Moment: 'As sweet as a dance'

A Writer's Moment: 'As sweet as a dance':   “Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.” – John Barrington Wain  Born in England in March of 1925, Wain was a prolific poet, nove...

'As sweet as a dance'

 

“Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.” – John Barrington Wain 

Born in England in March of 1925, Wain was a prolific poet, novelist and journalist, associated with the post-WWII literary group known as "The Movement.”  Led by the award-winning Hurry On Down and Young Shoulders, he wrote 14 novels, 3 short story collections and 9 collections of poetry, including the much-lauded Letters To Five Artists.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Wain’s,

                                Outside, gulls squabbled in the empty street

                                       Outside, gulls squabbled in the empty street.  Criticism

                                       and name-calling.  Salt air scrubbed the gleaming

                                       Sunday morning walls.  Gutter-split stalks, leaves, fueled the

                                       squalling

                                       and wheeling.  Feet, motors, slept. The inured citizens

                                       turned over to snore again.  Beside me, my darling

 

                                       slept in a deeper peace, like a princess in a fable

                                       all through the sea-clean, gull-torn dawn, slept below

                                       dreaming,

                                       stunned by those hours of outrageous bliss, bliss upon bliss,

                                       when love leapt higher than even the fiercest lovers were able.

                                          Patient, I lay, expecting tea and her morning kiss.

A Writer's Moment: 'The need to share responsibility'

A Writer's Moment: 'The need to share responsibility':   “Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.” – Fred Roge...