A Writer's Moment: Tackling challenges 'all for the good'

A Writer's Moment: Tackling challenges 'all for the good':   “The natural world is the only one we have. To try to not see the natural world - to put on blinders and avoid seeing it - would for me se...

Tackling challenges 'all for the good'

 

“The natural world is the only one we have. To try to not see the natural world - to put on blinders and avoid seeing it - would for me seem like a form of madness. I'm also interested in the way landscape shapes individuals and populations, and from that, cultures.” - Rick Bass

 

Born in Fort Worth, TX on March 7, 1958, Bass is the son of a geologist and was a petroleum geologist himself until he started writing short stories on his lunch breaks.  That led to him to an award-winning career as both a writer and environmental activist.  Now a resident of the remote Yaak Valley in Montana, his books, stories and essays are distributed worldwide, and he also is a nationally known speaker on environmental issues.   

 

Among Bass’s more than two dozen books are the award-winning Where the Sea Used to Be; his short story collection The Lives of Rocks; and the autobiographical Why I Came West.  Among his many other prizes are the General Electric Younger Writers Award, a PEN/Nelson Algren Special Citation for Fiction, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He writes both fiction and nonfiction, and his latest book is the nonfiction Wrecking Ball: Race, Friendship, God, and Football, published in 2025.

When asked about writing fiction versus nonfiction, he said, “I think a novelist must be more tender with living or 'real' people. . . A novel that features real people is complicated, but in the end, that extra challenge is all for the good.”

A Writer's Moment: Those 'moments in time'

A Writer's Moment: Those 'moments in time':   “It's hard to write haiku. I mostly write long, silly Indian poems .” – Jack Kerouac   That having been said, Kerouac – born in Ma...

Those 'moments in time'

 

“It's hard to write haiku. I mostly write long, silly Indian poems.” – Jack Kerouac

 

That having been said, Kerouac – born in March of 1922 and best remembered for his autobiographical novel On The Road – wrote a lot of haiku, scattered in among his many other writings.  On the Road, of course, is considered THE defining work of the post-WWII Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonists living life against a backdrop of jazz, poetry, and drug use.  It was based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across America.   But, for Saturday’s Poems, here are 3 of Kerouac’s “most-liked” (his words) haikus. I like them too.  .

 

                                           Holding Up My

Holding up my
purring cat to the moon
I sighed.

Birds Singing

Birds singing
in the dark
—Rainy dawn.

 

                                           The Low Yellow

The low yellow
moon above the
Quiet lamplit house.

A Writer's Moment: 'Always connected'

A Writer's Moment: 'Always connected':   “In fantasy, you can make a complete break, and you can put people in a situation where they are confronted with things that they would no...

'Always connected'

 

“In fantasy, you can make a complete break, and you can put people in a situation where they are confronted with things that they would not confront in the real world.” – Elizabeth Moon

 

Born in McAllen, TX on March 7, 1945, Moon started writing Science Fiction and Fantasy as a teenager – something she first looked upon as a sideline before realizing she had a knack for creating new worlds that people wanted to read about.   After a career as a U.S. Marine Corps officer, she turned back to writing, first as a successful newspaper columnist and opinion writer then as a writer of science fiction. 

 

Her first novel, leading to “The Deed of Paksenarrion” series, was 1988’s Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, winner of the Compton Crook Award for best debut sci-fi novel.  She's now written 35 books, the most recent a collection of 6 stories titled Deeds of Wisom: Paksenarrion World Chronicles III, published in 2025.

  

Among Moon's many other awards are the Robert A. Heinlein Award for "outstanding published works in hard science fiction or technical writings that inspire the human exploration of space,” and a “Best Novel” Hugo for The Speed of Dark, a near-future story told from the viewpoint of an autistic computer programmer and inspired by her son Michael.

 

“My personal feeling about science fiction,” she said, “is that it's always in some way connected  . . . to our everyday world.“

A Writer's Moment: 'History is what we bring to it'

A Writer's Moment: 'History is what we bring to it':   “History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events.” – Robert Harris Born in March of 1...