A Writer's Moment: Taking on 'the task of finding reality'

A Writer's Moment: Taking on 'the task of finding reality':   “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck” – Iris Murdoch   Born in Irel...

Taking on 'the task of finding reality'

 

“Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck” – Iris Murdoch

 

Born in Ireland on July 15, 1919 Murdoch grew up in London and first made her writing “commitment” with a series of philosophical essays and the blockbuster novel Under the Net that catapulted her onto the international literary scene in the early 1950s.  The novel ultimately was selected by both Time magazine and Modern Library as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.   

 

Murdoch went on to produce 25 more novels and many additional works of philosophy, poetry and drama, winning The Booker Prize for The Sea, The Sea, The Whitbread Literary Award for Fiction, and the James Tait Black Award for The Black Prince.  Shortly before her death in 1999, she was awarded the Golden PEN Award for "a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature.”

 

Her literary life was further honored by two memoirs from her husband John Bayley -- the books serving as the basis for the movie Iris, featuring Kate Winslett and Judi Dench as the younger and older Murdoch.

 

“We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion,” Murdoch wrote.   “The great task in life is to find reality”

A Writer's Moment: 'Lke arranging pieces of music'

A Writer's Moment: 'Lke arranging pieces of music':   “Ordering is difficult. It's like arranging pieces of music in a concert: What do you put first? What do you put after the intermissio...

'Lke arranging pieces of music'

 

“Ordering is difficult. It's like arranging pieces of music in a concert: What do you put first? What do you put after the intermission? I want the reader to be sort of surprised, to come to each story freshly.” – Lydia Davis

Born in Massachusetts on July 15, 1947 Davis is primarily a short story writer, although she’s also published novels and essays and served as a translator from French and other languages.  She’s especially noted for her translations of French literary classics, including Proust's Swann’s Way and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.  

 

 Winner of the Man Booker Prize for her lifetime body of work, Davis has been acclaimed for the brevity and humor of many of her short stories.   Davis has compared her shorter stories to skyscrapers, because, "They are surrounded by an imposing blank expanse."  Some of her stories have been labeled poetry, even though she insists they are not.  A number of her stories are highlighted in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis.  Her most recent works are 2023’s Our Strangers: Stories and 2025’s Into the Weeds. 

 

While both her parents were writers and teachers, Davis gravitated toward a career in music, initially studying piano, then violin.  But she said it probably was inevitable that she would become a writer.

 

"I was probably always headed to being a writer, even though that wasn't my first love,” she said.  “I guess I must have always wanted to write in some part of me or I wouldn't have done it.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Creating an appropriate past'

A Writer's Moment: 'Creating an appropriate past':   Isn't it amazing the way the future succeeds in creating an appropriate past?” – John Leonard   Born in Great Britain in July of 1...

'Creating an appropriate past'

 

Isn't it amazing the way the future succeeds in creating an appropriate past?” – John Leonard

 

Born in Great Britain in July of 1965, Leonard was raised and educated there but now makes his home in Australia.  The author of 5 poetry collections, his most recent work is the 2024 novel Shakespeare in Virginia.  For Saturday’s Poem, from his book Braided Lands, here is:

 

You Don't Write a Poem

You don't write a poem-

What you do is discover

That there is a world,

Quite similar to our own,

Except that it contains

This one extra poem.

 

And what you recognise

Is that this one poem

Makes all the difference

© John Leonard

A Writer's Moment: 'Just grow up and write'

A Writer's Moment: 'Just grow up and write':   “I don't mean it to sound egomaniacal, but in a way, for me, it was very useful to imagine that I was the only one who was taking pen ...