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.”  – ...

'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.” – Jules Verne

Born in the seaport city of Nantes, France on Feb. 8, 1828 Verne grew up around sailors and their tales.  His earliest stories were about the sea and the often-fantastical sea creatures sailors were said to encounter, tales later repeated in his book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and alluded to in Journey to the Center of the Earth.   Those two novels along with From Earth to the Moon led to him being dubbed one of the “Fathers of Science Fiction,” along with H.G. Wells and Hugo Gernsback.

 

The author of 62 books, he is the second-most translated author in history – only behind Agatha Christie.  He also wrote numerous plays, short stories, essays, poetry, songs, and scientific, artistic and literary studies. His work has been adapted for film and television since the beginning of cinema, as well as for comic books, theater, opera, music and video games.

 

In 1890, Verne’s fictional character Phileas Fogg became the centerpiece of a real-life challenge.   Journalist Nellie Bly of The New York World decided to try to "best" the character’s Around The World in 80 Days record, reporting on her escapades as she traveled.  She completed the trip in 72 days, establishing herself as both a daredevil adventurer and one of the most-read reporters of her day.

 

During the trip, she stopped in France to visit Verne and was shocked to find that he produced his masterpieces in a small, nondescript room on a beat-up old typewriter at an ordinary-sized desk. 

 

“It’s not the place you write that matters,” Verne told his aspiring young American visitor.  “It’s what you produce there that counts.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Like a broken-winged bird'

A Writer's Moment: 'Like a broken-winged bird':   “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”  – Langston Hughes Hughes, a poet, social activ...