A Writer's Moment: What first must burn inside

A Writer's Moment: What first must burn inside:   “I'm just going to write because I cannot help it.” – Charlotte Bronte   Born in England on this date in 1816, Bronte lived to ju...

What first must burn inside

 

“I'm just going to write because I cannot help it.” – Charlotte Bronte

 

Born in England on this date in 1816, Bronte lived to just age 39 before dying of typhus during pregnancy.  The oldest of 3 Bronte sisters who survived into adulthood (2 others died of tuberculosis), she and her surviving sisters Emily and Anne each wrote novels that are considered classics of English literature. 

Her writing career formally began when she, Emily and Anne co-published a book of poetry under the pseudonym Bell – Charlotte as Currer; Emily as Ellis; and Anne as Acton.  Their poems did not succeed but the three women’s subsequent novels – Jane Eyre from Charlotte; Wuthering Heights from Emily; and Agnes Grey from Anne – were wildly successful and led to their revealing their real names to the writing world.   With an innovative style that combined naturalism with gothic melodrama, Charlotte’s writing especially plowed new ground.

Her remarkable lyrical style gave us such statements as “The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter - often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter - in the eye.”  And “The human heart has hidden treasures, in secret kept, in silence sealed; the thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, whose charms were broken if revealed.”

“What you want to ignite in others,” she said of her hopes as a writer, “must first burn inside yourself.” 

A Writer's Moment: 'Fighting through life's travails'

A Writer's Moment: 'Fighting through life's travails':   “To throw oneself to the side of the oppressed is the only dignified thing to do in life.” – Edwin Markham Born in Oregon on this date ...

'Fighting through life's travails'

 

“To throw oneself to the side of the oppressed is the only dignified thing to do in life.” – Edwin Markham

Born in Oregon on this date in 1852, Markham grew up in a broken home, worked the family farm as a child, was mostly self-educated, and against the wishes of his family (he was youngest of 10 children) decided to go to college and study literature.

 

After earning degrees in The Classics and teaching literature for several years, Markham fell in love with poetry and began writing full time in his late 40s, the start of a 40-year career.  His two most famous poems are "The Man with the Hoe," inspired by the painting by the artist Jean-Francois Millet, and "Lincoln, the Man of the People," read at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial.  The author of 7 poetry collections, he was named Poet Laureate of Oregon in the 1930s when he also published his highly regarded Eighty Poems at Eighty. 

 

Shortly before his death in 1940, he was named as the first recipient of the American Academy of Poets Award for his “contributions to American literature and impact on the poetic landscape.”

 

A prolific letter writer and book collector, Markham amassed more than 15,000 books.  He bequeathed them and his personal papers and letters, including years of correspondence with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ambrose Bierce, and fellow poets Carl Sandburg and Amy Lowell, to tiny Wagner College in New York City.  

 

“Great it is to believe in the dream as we stand in youth by the starry stream," he wrote, "but a greater thing is to fight life through and say at the end, the dream is true!”

A Writer's Moment: 'Having a genuine adventure'

A Writer's Moment: 'Having a genuine adventure':   “I have two parents who are brilliant storytellers. The art of developing a story and nurturing a story was present in my household from t...

'Having a genuine adventure'

 

“I have two parents who are brilliant storytellers. The art of developing a story and nurturing a story was present in my household from the day I was born.” – Robert Kurson 

Born on April 18, 1963 Kurson wrote Shadow Divers, the blockbuster bestselling true story of two Americans who discover a World War II German U-boat sunk 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey.  Shadow Divers spent 24 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list and was awarded an American Booksellers Association’s "Book of the Year Award."

 

A one-time lawyer with a degree from Harvard Law School, Kurson said he always thought writing would be his real profession and first decided to give it a try at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he wrote both sports stories and features. 

 

A self-proclaimed “adventure seeker,” Kurson also wrote Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship, a gripping account of the search for the wreck of the 17th-century pirate ship Golden Fleece.

 

“I think that pirates represent every person's ability to get up and leave their current daily situation and go on an adventure, and maybe to see things and do things they've never done before or even dreamed of doing," Kurson said.   “It's never too late in life to have a genuine adventure.”

A Writer's Moment: 'How you fortify your inner life'

A Writer's Moment: 'How you fortify your inner life':   ‘If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.’ – Seamus Heaney   Born in Northern Ireland on...