A Writer's Moment: 'The books we should cherish'

A Writer's Moment: 'The books we should cherish':   “The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.” – Judy Blume   Born in ...

'The books we should cherish'

 

“The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.” – Judy Blume

 

Born in Elizabeth, NJ on this date in 1938, Blume has authored dozens of novels that have tackled sensitive topics and sometimes been a source of controversy.  But there’s little doubt that they resonate with young people.  To date her 30 books - mostly written for teens -  have had sales approaching 100 million, translated into 32 languages.

 

Blume said she hopes her stories have opened the doors to teens to gain a better understanding of themselves and issues that surround them.    Racism, divorce, bullying, sexuality, all have all been “on the table” for Blume’s characters. “Generating discussion,” she said, is her primary goal.  She has been recognized as one of the world’s great “storytellers” who bring kids into the reading world, winning more than 90 literary awards, including three lifetime achievement awards and the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards Award for "significant and lasting contribution to Young Adult literature.”

 

“Any book that gets kids to read are books that we should cherish,” she noted.  “We should be thankful for them”

A Writer's Moment: 'Listen with both the ear and the eye'

A Writer's Moment: 'Listen with both the ear and the eye': “Read something of interest every day - something of interest to you, not to your teacher or your best friend or your minister/rabbi/priest....

'Listen with both the ear and the eye'

“Read something of interest every day - something of interest to you, not to your teacher or your best friend or your minister/rabbi/priest. Comics count. So does poetry. So do editorials in your school newspaper. Or a biography of a rock star. Or an instructional manual. Or the Bible.” – Jane Yolen

 

Born in New York City on this date in 1939, Yolen was immersed in writing, the daughter of a journalist and public relations writer.  She started her own writing in elementary school and created a “newspaper” in her Manhattan apartment building while still in junior high, a time when she also wrote a multi-page essay about New York State’s manufacturing industry – in rhyme.

 

In high school, she won a Scholastic Magazine poetry contest and edited and wrote for the school newspaper, something she continued at Smith College.  There, she also wrote a book of poetry, was president of the Press Board, and penned song lyrics for theater productions in which she was involved.   On her 21^st birthday, she sold her first book (nonfiction) about female pirates titled Pirates in Petticoats.  “After that,“ she said, “I was a book writer for good.”

Yolen has authored or edited some 400 books and short stories, her best-known being The Devil's Arithmetic, a Holocaust novella; the Nebula Award-winning short story Sister Emily's Lightship; a novelette Lost Girls; and her children’s books Owl Moon, The Emperor and the Kite, and “Commander Toad” series.   She reads everything aloud, no matter whether a novel, an essay, or a children’s picture book, and does the same when creating her own works.   

 

“I believe the eye and ear are different ‘listeners’,” she explained.  “So as writers, we have to please both.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's an unusual quantity of a usual quality'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's an unusual quantity of a usual quality':   “I have never been bored an hour in my life. I get up every morning wondering what new strange glamorous thing is going to happen and it h...

'It's an unusual quantity of a usual quality'

 

“I have never been bored an hour in my life. I get up every morning wondering what new strange glamorous thing is going to happen and it happens at fairly regular intervals.” – William Allen White

 

Born in Emporia, Kansas on this date in 1868, White became America’s most renowned small town newspaper editor.  Along the way, he joined with Theodore Roosevelt to become a leader of the “Progressive” movement, won two Pulitzer Prizes and became a best-selling author.  His Emporia Gazette became the most famous “small town” newspaper in America and Emporia a “must stop” place for political leaders and celebrities. 

 

White became a key character in my novel And The Wind Whispered after I learned that he traveled to the Black Hills to spend time in Hot Springs, the community in which my book is set.   I was struck by how that trip – and his meeting there with Roosevelt – may have had some influence on his journalism and political thought.  He felt Roosevelt embodied America and was greatness personified.   “Greatness, generally speaking,” he said, “is an unusual quantity of a usual quality grafted upon a common man.”

 

As he neared death in 1944, White wrote how grateful he was to have lived and worked in America, and he said he looked forward to every day regardless of what it might bring.  

 

“I am not afraid of tomorrow,” he said, “for I have seen yesterday, and I love today!”

A Writer's Moment: 'Little by little they lead to the truth'

A Writer's Moment: 'Little by little they lead to the truth':   “Science … is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.”  – ...