A Writer's Moment: Taming those 'unruly' novels

A Writer's Moment: Taming those 'unruly' novels:   “I noticed, when I taught elementary school, how true the squeaky wheel thing is, and how endearing squeaky wheels can be! Because when yo...

Taming those 'unruly' novels

 

“I noticed, when I taught elementary school, how true the squeaky wheel thing is, and how endearing squeaky wheels can be! Because when you're being a squeaky wheel, you're also really letting people know who you are.” – Aimee Bender

 

Born in California on June 28, 1969 Bender is known for her surreal stories and characters.   She’s authored 6 books, led by her first collection of short stories The Girl in the Flammable Skirt.  Her numerous short stories have been published in magazines and journals ranging from Harper's, McSweeney's and The Paris to inclusion in a number of anthologies, and her story Faces was a 2009 Shirley Jackson Award finalist for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense.  

 

Also the winner of two Pushcart Prizes for her writing, her novels include The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and her most recent, The Butterfly Lampshade. 

 

“Novels are so much unrulier and more stressful to write,” she said in comparing her writings of short stories .  “A short story can last two pages and then it's over, and that's kind of a relief. I really like balancing the two.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's how we become participants'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's how we become participants':   “We participate in the creation of the world by de-creating ourselves.”  – Anne Carson   Carson, born in Canada on June 21, 1950 is a ...

'It's how we become participants'

 

“We participate in the creation of the world by de-creating ourselves.” – Anne Carson

 

Carson, born in Canada on June 21, 1950 is a poet, essayist, translator, and teacher at universities in both the U.S. and Canada.   She also is the winner of three of the most distinguished and richest writing awards – the Guggenheim, the MacArthur, and the Lannan.   For Saturday’s Poem, here is Carson’s,

 

     Short Talk on Chromo-Luminarism

                         Sunlight slows down Europeans. Look at all those
                        spellbound people in Seurat. Look at Monsieur,
                         sitting deeply. Where does a European go when he
                         is ‘lost in thought'? Seurat has painted that
                        place—the old dazzler! It lies on the other
                        side of attention, a long lazy boatride from here.
                        It is A Sunday rather than A Saturday afternoon
                        there. Seurat has made this clear by a special
                        method. "Ma méthode," he called it, rather testily,
                        when we asked him. He caught us hurrying through
                        the chill green shadows like adulterers. The
                        river was opening and closing its stone lips.
                        The river was pressing Seurat to its lips.

A Writer's Moment: 'You have to search yesterday'

A Writer's Moment: 'You have to search yesterday':   “If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.”  – Pearl Buck   Born in the backwoods of West Virginia on this date i...

'You have to search yesterday'

 

“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.” – Pearl Buck

 

Born in the backwoods of West Virginia on this date in 1892, Buck spent many of her “growing up years" in China where her parents were missionaries.   Over her lifetime she penned 40 novels, led by the massive best-selling The Good Earth, lauded for its compelling depiction of Chinese peasant life.    Over her 50-year writing career she also wrote numerous short stories and several nonfiction works, earning every major writing award capped by the 1938 Nobel Prize, becoming the first American woman to win the award. 

 

She also spoke and wrote against injustice whenever and wherever she saw it, and after winning the Nobel she utilized the prize money to establish the Pearl S. Buck Foundation to address humanitarian issues, especially in support of overcoming crushing poverty faced by children.  She saw the world unfolding around her and chronicled it in a writing style that melded the past and present with clarity and intensity. 

 

“In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on,” she said.  “A ream of paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book.  I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.”

A Writer's Moment: 'What about a fourth apple?'

A Writer's Moment: 'What about a fourth apple?':   “Armenian folklore has it that three apples fell from Heaven: one for the teller of a story, one for the listener, and the third for the o...