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A Writer's Moment: 'Property of the imagination' : “The English language is nobody's special property. ...
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“One of the great joys of life is creativity. Information goes in, gets shuffled about, and comes out in new and intere...
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A Writer's Moment: 'Be willing to fail' : “I'm always terrified when I'm writing.” – Mary Karr ...
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A Writer's Moment: 'Information In; Creative Responses Out' : “One of the great joys of life is creativity....
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“Librarians and romance writers accomplish one mission better than anyone, including English teachers: we create readers for life - and w...
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A Writer's Moment: 'Story ideas surround you' : “I always tell my students, 'If you walk around with your eyes and ears...
Sunday, February 28, 2021
A Writer's Moment: 'Unacknowledged Historians'
'Unacknowledged Historians'
“If you're a writer, you know there are ways in which we don't know what we're doing at all. We're working out mysteries in a sort of poetic realm, and hoping that if a story is honest, if you're dragging the deep truth out of yourself, then something good and profound might come out of it.”—Colum McCann
Born in Dublin, Ireland on this date in 1965, McCann is the author of seven novels and three collections of stories. He has been the recipient of many international honors, including the National Book Award, the International Dublin Impac Prize, and the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government. His topics have ranged from homeless people in the subway tunnels of New York, to a poetic examination of the life and culture of the Roma in Europe.
Perhaps his best-known book is Let the Great World Spin, winner of the National Book Award in the U.S, Best Foreign Novel Award in China, and the International Impac Award, a literary award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been published in over 40 languages.
Co-founder of the non-profit global story exchange organization, Narrative 4, he lives with his wife and family in New York City where he teaches at the MFA program in Hunter College.
“In a certain way, novelists become unacknowledged historians, because we talk about small, tiny, little anonymous moments that won't necessarily make it into the history books.”
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Saturday, February 27, 2021
A Writer's Moment: Poetry: 'Just Doing'
Poetry: 'Just Doing'
“With poetry no one has to show anybody really, and you don't have to tell anyone you're doing it.” – Roger McGough
For Saturday's Poem, here is McGough's,
Sleeping In
Our
street is dead lazy
Especially in
winter.
Some mornings you
wake up
And it’s still
lying there
Saying
nothing. Huddled
under its white
counterpane.
But soon the
lorries arrive
Like angry Mums,
Pull back the
blankets
And send it
shivering
Off to work.
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www.writersmoment.blogspot.comFriday, February 26, 2021
A Writer's Moment: It's Simply The Best
It's Simply The Best
“I
still feel, as I did when I was six or seven, that books are simply the best
way to experience a story.” – Philip Reeve
Thursday, February 25, 2021
A Writer's Moment: 'Really A Way Of Thinking'
'Really A Way Of Thinking'
“Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.”—Toni Morrison
“If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet,” she once advised aspiring writers, “then you must write it.”
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Wednesday, February 24, 2021
A Writer's Moment: Writing 'Right' The First Time
Writing 'Right' The First Time
“A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again.” – W.E.B. Du Bois
As Black History Month winds down, what better person to note and quote than the prolific author W.E.B. Du Bois, who was born in February 1868 and died when I was in high school in 1963.
“Read some good, heavy, serious
books just for discipline,” DuBois advised. “Take yourself in hand and master yourself.”
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Tuesday, February 23, 2021
A Writer's Moment: 'Judge Others, Judging Ourselves'
'Judge Others, Judging Ourselves'
“If we judge others it is because we are judging something in ourselves of which we are unaware.” - John Camp
I first met Camp in 1985 when he was working on The St. Paul Pioneer Press. He was part way through a series he was writing about a farm family in southwestern Minnesota – not that far away from where I had grown up on a farm in nearby South Dakota. We had a pleasant talk and I asked him what he might be doing next after finishing the series – which ended up lasting that entire year.
Monday, February 22, 2021
A Writer's Moment: A Leading Light for the Ages
A Leading Light for the Ages
“Let us forget such words, and all they mean, as Hatred, Bitterness and Rancor, Greed, Intolerance, Bigotry; let us renew our faith and pledge to Man, his right to be Himself, and free.” – Edna St. Vincent Millay.
St. Vincent Millay, who was born on this date in 1892, won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry – only the third woman to win the award in that category – in 1923. And just to show that she wasn’t a “one hit wonder,” she won the Frost Medal for her lifetime contribution to American poetry 20 years later. In between, she wrote many, many great poems and earned the accolade from fellow poet Richard Wilbur that “She wrote some of the best sonnets of the century.”
“A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down," said Millay. "If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.” Millay wrote good books and plays. And her poetry was even better.
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