A Writer's Moment: It's Why Writers Write

A Writer's Moment: It's Why Writers Write: “There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not anymore wha...

It's Why Writers Write

“There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not anymore what you will become. It is what you are and always will be.” – John Fowles

Born in England on this date in 1926, Fowles was a gifted athlete and student and went on to distinguish himself in both the classroom and on the athletic fields before serving in the military at the end of World War II and during its aftermath.  Utilizing his military pension and experiences, he studied at Oxford and began what would become an award-winning writing career.

After writing a number of short stories and poems while also teaching English in the Greek Isles, he returned to England and wrote The Collector, a critically acclaimed novel and feature movie, quickly followed by The Magus – based on his time in Greece – and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, which not only was a worldwide bestseller but also the basis for the mega-hit movie starring Meryl Streep. 

         Over the rest of his lifetime (he died in 2005) he authored a dozen major novels, half-a-dozen collections of short stories and essays, and several books of poetry.  Shortly before his death he was named to the London Times “50 Greatest British Writers” in the last half of the 20^th Century.

                                                                       

“There are many reasons why novelists write,” he said at the time, “but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.” 

                                                                                                                                                                                   

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A Writer's Moment: When Poets Find Their Voices

A Writer's Moment: When Poets Find Their Voices: “Poets find their voices when they articulate the wishes of the dead, especially those slain as sacrificial talismans to a larger frame of...

When Poets Find Their Voices

“Poets find their voices when they articulate the wishes of the dead, especially those slain as sacrificial talismans to a larger frame of existence.” – Michael S. Harper

Born in Brooklyn, NY, in March 1938, Harper grew up in New York and Los Angeles and began creative writing while still in high school.  After studying at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in California and went on to a distinguished teaching career, including professorships at Colgate, Brown and Harvard.  

                        Using stories from both his family's past and events in black history in general, he built a sophisticated vision of racial encounter and experience through poetry and music.  He wrote 8 volumes of poetry, contributed to numerous journals and anthologies, and collaborated on numerous musical efforts born out of the African-American experience.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Harper’s,

A R I A

Saner in the 'golden moment'
“a capella”

the three idioms of song
scores coming at you  'fast'

one dying in refrain
a tyranny of magic making

only the chords
full tones as increment

'to live is to resist stillness'
except in the zone 

the soloists salute a 'chant of saints'
while the aria moans
          

alone on assignment
'the making' continues to shine

'to make' is to live live (italics mine)
where force is made   chorus made out of nothing                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

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A Writer's Moment: 'Self-doubt is not a good idea'

A Writer's Moment: 'Self-doubt is not a good idea': “As a writer, you have to believe you’re one of the best writers in the world.   To sit down every day at the typewrit...

'Self-doubt is not a good idea'

“As a writer, you have to believe you’re one of the best writers in the world.  To sit down every day at the typewriter filled with self-doubt is not a good idea.” – Jo Nesbo

Norwegian writer and singer Nesbo has parlayed that self-confidence into a highly successful career.   His creative fiction about Norwegian and international crime solver Harry Hole, a gritty detective known for his ability to not only solve perplexing crimes but also “save the girl,” has earned him legions of reading fans.   And on screen, his suspenseful yarns have earned myriad screenwriting awards.  Nesbo, born on March 29, 1960, has nearly 30 million copies of his books in print worldwide, translated into some 40 languages.   

Many of his readers and viewers also tune in to hear him sing as lead vocalist and songwriter for the rock band DJ Derre.  The personable Nesbo, who grew up in a small town outside of Oslo has not forgotten his roots, saying many of his readers and listeners think of him as “a family member made good.”   

                                    “I’ve always said that you can’t visit readers where you think they are, but instead you need to invite them home to where you are,” he said.  “They need to join you in your world.  That’s the art of storytelling.”

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A Writer's Moment: Life - 'It Goes On'

A Writer's Moment: Life - 'It Goes On': “ In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life:   it goes on.” – Robert Frost I’ve always loved the poetry of Rober...

Life - 'It Goes On'

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life:  it goes on.” – Robert Frost

I’ve always loved the poetry of Robert Frost and thought about his imagery and attention to the land while recently driving and walking in the rugged countryside of western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming.  I don’t think Frost ever visited there, but I’m sure if he had we would have had another great book of poems about the experience.

Frost was born 145 years ago in California (on March 26) but grew up and spent most of his life in New England. His realistic depictions of rural life, the beauty of the land, and command of American colloquial speech – all while examining complex social and philosophical themes – may never be equaled.   Poetry is a simple process, he liked to say; just an emotion finding a thought and the thought finding its words.

 

 

Like every writer he hit dry periods, but unlike many he had something to say about that.  “Poets,” he noted, “are like baseball pitchers.  Both have their moments.  It’s the intervals that are the tough things.”

The only poet to win four Pulitzer Prizes, he also was honored with the Congressional Gold Medal and named Poet Laureate of Vermont.  A great teacher, at some of America's greatest colleges, he liked to say that education is hanging around until you’ve caught on.  “I talk in order to understand,” he said.  “But I teach in order to learn.”

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A Writer's Moment: It's 'The Breathings of Your Heart'

A Writer's Moment: It's 'The Breathings of Your Heart': “Fill your papers with the breathings of your heart.” – William Wordsworth   Wise words from the man who helped la...

It's 'The Breathings of Your Heart'

“Fill your papers with the breathings of your heart.” – William Wordsworth
 

Wise words from the man who helped launch what’s known as “The Romantic Age” in English literature with his share of the renowned Lyrical Ballads in 1798.

His “Lines Written in Early Spring,” one of the ballads, has some of the most beautiful descriptive writing about the season ever penned, and if you want to see a “How it should be done” piece read that one alone – if you find you don’t have time for the entire Lyrical Ballads masterpiece.

Born in 1770, Wordsworth was already writing and drawing admirers in his teens and went on to become Poet Laureate of Great Britain from1843-1850, the year of his death, Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a string of beautiful in-depth poems over a span of 50 years, including Wordsworth’s The Prelude, considered one of the greatest epic poems of all time.     Wordsworth had a simple formula for writing success.  “To begin, begin,” he said.   As for how to successfully live one’s life, he noted, “The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”

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A Writer's Moment: 'It All Starts With Writing'

A Writer's Moment: 'It All Starts With Writing': “Whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You migh...

'It All Starts With Writing'

“Whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You might have to write on a notebook while your kids are playing on the swings or write in your car on your coffee break. That's okay. I think we've all 'been there, done that.' Just remember, it all starts with the writing.” – Robin Hobb

Born in March, 1952, Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden, who writes under the pen name of Robin Hobb, took her own advice and started writing for children’s magazines at the age of 18.  While she was successful in that field, she thought she’d be better at science fiction and fantasy and decided to give it a try. 

                                          Good choice.  Over the past 40 years she’s arguably been the most prolific writer in those fields while capturing most of the genre’s major awards. She has written five series set in the Realm of the Elderlings, which started in 1995 with the publication of Assassin's Apprentice and ended with Assassin's Fate in 2017.  Her books have sold over a million copies.

Hobb has been praised by most critics as “the standard setter for modern serious fantasy.” And no less writer than George R.R. Martin (author of the Game of Thrones series) said she is the best fantasy writer he has ever read.  “In today’s crowded fantasy market,” Martin said, “Robin Hobb’s books are like diamonds in a sea of zircons.”

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A Writer's Moment: Featuring Poet John Ashbery

A Writer's Moment: Featuring Poet John Ashbery: “ I like poems you can tack all over with a hammer and there are no hollow places.” – John Ashbery Former Poet La...

Featuring Poet John Ashbery

“I like poems you can tack all over with a hammer and there are no hollow places.” – John Ashbery

Former Poet Laureate Ashbery was the longer subject of yesterday’s blog post and today is the focal point for Saturday’s Poem.    Here is Ashbery’s,

By Guess and By Gosh

O awaken with me
the inquiring goodbyes.
Ooh what a messy business
a tangle and a muddle
(and made it seem quite interesting).

He ticks them off:
leisure top,
a different ride home,
whispering, in a way,
whispered whiskers,
so many of the things you have to share.

But I was getting on,
and that's what you don't need.
I'm certainly sorry about scaring your king,
if indeed that's what happened to him.
You get Peanuts and War and Peace,
some in rags, some in jags, some in
velvet gown. They want
the other side of the printing plant.

There were concerns.
Say hi to jock itch, leadership principles,
urinary incompetence.
Take that, perfect pitch.
And say a word for the president,
for the scholar magazines, papers, a streaming.
Then you are interested in poetry.

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A Writer's Moment: Looming Large in Writing Circles

A Writer's Moment: Looming Large in Writing Circles: “I write with experiences in mind, but I don't write about them, I write out of them.” – John Ashbery In 2008...

Looming Large in Writing Circles

“I write with experiences in mind, but I don't write about them, I write out of them.” – John Ashbery

In 2008 Langdon Hammer, chair of the English Department at Yale, said "No figure looms so large in American poetry over the past 50 years as John Ashbery" and "No American poet has had a larger, more diverse vocabulary, not Whitman, not Pound.” 

Born in 1928 Ashbery published 29 volumes of poetry over 6 decades, earning every major award for the genre’, including a Pulitzer Prize for Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.   In 2012 he was inducted into the New York Writers Hall of Fame.  His final book, Breezeway, was published shortly before his death in 2017.

One key to his success was his effort to write for everyone and make the work as accessible as possible.  “I don’t want my poems to be a private dialogue with myself.  I don’t look on poetry as closed works,” he said.  “I feel they’re going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length to share.”

As poet and critic Melanie Rehak wrote in reviewing one of his books, “…reading an Ashbery poem is also a little bit like being let loose inside a house of mirrors —things don’t always make sense on the surface, but on some gut level, you know you’re still looking at yourself, which is about as much as you can hope for.”

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A Writer's Moment: Bringing Characters From The Shadows

A Writer's Moment: Bringing Characters From The Shadows: “Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, I've never had the sense I was 'making up' a character. It feels m...

Bringing Characters From The Shadows

“Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, I've never had the sense I was 'making up' a character. It feels more like watching people reveal themselves, ever more deeply, more intimately.” – Kathryn Harrison

Born in Los Angeles on this date in 1960, Harrison earned degrees at both Stanford and the University of Iowa, where she first studied in that school’s famed Writers’ Workshop.  Her debut novel, Thicker Than Water, was an instant success and paved the way for a career that (to date) includes 7 novels, 2 memoirs, 2 collections of personal essays, a travelogue, 2 biographies, and a book of true crime. 

      Almost as well known for her personal essays – which have been included in many anthologies as well as in such leading magazines as Harper's, The New Yorker and Vogue – she also is regularly seen as a reviewer for The New York Times Book Review.   Now a full-time resident of New York City, she shares her writing skills by teaching memoir writing at the City University of New York’s Hunter College as part of their Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing. 

“I admire writers who succeed at what I consider the first demand of art: that the artist vivisect himself without pity, without hesitation, determined to reveal whatever he might find.”

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A Writer's Moment: Offering Your Writing Talents

A Writer's Moment: Offering Your Writing Talents: “Each of us has a gift, a talent, that we can offer to the world that makes the world essentially a better place.” – J...

Offering Your Writing Talents

“Each of us has a gift, a talent, that we can offer to the world that makes the world essentially a better place.” – James Redfield

Born in Alabama on this date in 1950, Redfield is an author, lecturer, screenwriter and film producer, most notably for his novel The Celestine Prophecy, a first-person narrative of the narrator's spiritual awakening as he goes through a transitional period of his life.

Redfield’s debut novel, written when he was 40, raced to the forefront of many best-seller lists and then was re-published by Warner Books, which took it to Number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller List, where it stayed for over 3 years.   The Celestine Prophecy was the No. 1 international bestseller of 1996 (#2 in 1995) and sold over 20 million copies.  To date it has been translated into 34 languages and made into a major motion picture.

Honored by his alma mater, Auburn University, with its “Humanitarian of the Year” Award, Redfield also received the “World View Award” from the Wisdom Media Group for engaging the discussion on the nature of human existence and for his ongoing efforts and contributions to the bettering of humanity.  

                                       “What I need in order to stay creative and centered is a certain amount of distance from the maddening crowd,” Redfield said about his writing.  “You cease to be your best self if you're running too fast.”

 

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A Writer's Moment: An Irish Blessing

A Writer's Moment: An Irish Blessing: “You are never too old to set another goal, or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis What better Irish writer to salute on St. Patrick’...

An Irish Blessing

“You are never too old to set another goal, or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis

What better Irish writer to salute on St. Patrick’s Day than Clive Staple (C.S.) Lewis, born in Belfast, Ireland in 1898 and one of the greatest writers of the 20^th Century.  Lewis started writing in his parents’ attic at age 7 and never really stopped.  He wrote more than 30 books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands each year.  C.S. Lewis’s most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Screwtape Letters and, of course, the universally acknowledged Chronicles of Narnia.  To date, the Narnia books alone have sold well over 100 million copies and been made into 3 major motion pictures.  

                                   While his impact on the world’s literature is ever-lasting, he himself had a great love of literature and for what it stood.   “Literature,” he said, “adds to reality, it does not simply describe it.  It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives already have become.”   On St. Patrick’s Day, Lewis liked to quote this Irish prayer:

 
  An Irish Blessing

May your days be many

and your troubles be few.

May all God's blessings

descend upon you.

May peace be within you,

may your heart be strong.

May you find what you're

seeking wherever you roam.

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