A Writer's Moment: 'The need to make sense of life'

A Writer's Moment: 'The need to make sense of life':   “The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness.”  –  John Cheever   Born in ...

'The need to make sense of life'

 

“The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness.” –  John Cheever

 

Born in New York City on this date in 1912, novelist and short story writer Cheever was one of the most important short fiction writers of the 20th century.  A high school dropout, he was “a natural writer” and published his first short story while still in his teens.  After being published in prominent magazines like The New Yorker. he joined a number of up-and-coming writers in the Depression-era government program called The Writer’s Project, then enlisted in the Army where he had his first book of short stories published while serving during World War II.

 

Among Cheever’s numerous writing prizes were the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize, all for The Stories of John Cheever.

 

 Chronicler of both his times and the people he encountered, Cheever was lauded for his keen, often critical, view of the American middle class.  His stories are characterized by attention to detail, careful writing, and “tales of the extraordinary within the ordinary.”                   

 

Always cognizant of his reading public and what they liked, he once said, “I can't write without a reader. It's precisely like a kiss - you really can't do it alone.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Creating a lasting tale of dreams'

A Writer's Moment: 'Creating a lasting tale of dreams':   “Most people write a lot of autobiography, but when I came to write autobiography I discovered that nothing interesting had ever happened ...

'Creating a lasting tale of dreams'

 

“Most people write a lot of autobiography, but when I came to write autobiography I discovered that nothing interesting had ever happened to me. So I had to take the situation and invent stories to go with it.” –  W. P. Kinsella

 

Born in Edmonton, Alberta on this date in 1935, William Patrick Kinsella was a novelist and short story writer whose tales focused on baseball and Canada’s First Nations people.  For a wonderful read about life on the First Nations’ Reserve in Alberta, check out his short story collection Dance Me Outside, his very first book (released in 1977).  Narrated by a young Cree named Silas Ermineskin, it is a remarkable look at Reserve life, love, sorrow and triumph.

 

But while he writes poignantly and with great detail about the First Nations, it is for his 1982 baseball novel Shoeless Joe that he gained international acclaim and a lasting spot in American vernacular.

                                                                                                                         

Mildly controversial when it was released, Kinsella’s tale uses the reclusive (and still living at the time) author J.D. Salinger as one of its main characters, even though Kinsella had never met him. "I made sure to make him a nice character, though, so that he couldn’t sue me.” Kinsella said.   

 

Primarily set in small town, rural America the story has one of the great literary exchanges when one of Kinsella’s  “spirit” ballplayers – representing players from the early part of the 20^th century – emerges from a cornfield onto a baseball field constructed by a farmer named Ray who has heard a voice saying “build it and they will come.”  Seemingly bewildered, the player asks if this is Heaven?  “No,” Ray answers.  “This is Iowa.”

 

“Most writers are unhappy with film adaptations of their work, and rightly so,” Kinsella said shortly before his death in 2016.  “But Field of Dreams caught the spirit and essence of Shoeless Joe.”   

A Writer's Moment: 'Oh no!' it's that 'heartbreaking' result

A Writer's Moment: 'Oh no!' it's that 'heartbreaking' result:   “The awful thing, as a kid reading, was that you came to the end of the story, and that was it. I mean, it would be heartbreaking that the...

'Oh no!' it's that 'heartbreaking' result

 

“The awful thing, as a kid reading, was that you came to the end of the story, and that was it. I mean, it would be heartbreaking that there was no more of it.” – Robert Creeley

 

Born in Massachusetts in May of 1926, Creeley authored more than 60 books of poems and one novel.   Associated with the Black Mountain Poets, he was widely recognized as one of the most important and influential American poets of the 20th century. The winner of numerous awards, he was named for the prestigious Bollingen Prize and served as New York Poet Laureate.  For Saturday’s Poem, here are two of Creeley’s short poems, 

 

Love Comes Quietly         and                       Oh No !

 

Love comes quietly,                                 If you wander far enough                           
finally, drops                                              you will come to it
about me, on me,                                      and when you get there
in the old ways.                                         they will give you a place to sit    

What did I know                                       for yourself only, in a nice chair.
thinking myself                                         And all your friends will be there
able to go                                                     with smiles on their faces,

alone all the way.                                     they will likewise all have places.

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Great characters; great tale'

A Writer's Moment: 'Great characters; great tale':   “The characters are always the focal point of a book for me, whether I'm writing or reading. I may enjoy a book that has an intriguing...