“Imagination
has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization.
Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to
discover electricity.” – L. Frank Baum
Born in
mid-May 1856 in upstate New York, Baum earned lasting success and several
spots in the lexicon with his creative writing imagination, especially in
creating The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. But he was not a “one-trick” pony. He employed his own vivid imagination to write 60
novels, 83 short stories, 200 poems and countless scripts for both the stage
and the fledgling movie industry.
Also a newspaper editor for several
years, he was working at the Saturday
Evening Pioneer, in Aberdeen, SD, when he started writing his Wonderful Wizard books. He credited his experiences on the prairies of
drought-stricken South Dakota (my own home state, by the way) for his setting
at the beginning of Dorothy’s journey to Oz, although as everyone knows, he
changed the location to Kansas. 
And thus, along with the names
Dorothy and Toto and his idea that a magical land could be found “Over The Rainbow,”
his phrase “I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” became one of the
most recognizable in the English language.
Another line from the Wonderful Wizard that I’ve always liked is his advice to
the Tin Man, whose quest was for a heart. “A heart,” he said, “is not judged by how much you love; but by
how much you are loved by others.”
Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com
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