A Writer's Moment: 'The Best Way To Experience Stories'

A Writer's Moment: 'The Best Way To Experience Stories': “ I still feel, as I did when I was six or seven, that books are simply the best way to experience a story.” – Philip R...

'The Best Way To Experience Stories'

“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

Reeve, born on Feb. 28, 1966, is the British cartoonist /illustrator of many books for kids, including the “Dead Famous” book Horatio Nelson and His Victory, and a number of books in the clever Horrible Histories and Murderous Maths series.  He also wrote the Buster Bayliss books for young readers, which includes Night of the Living Veg, The Big Freeze, Day of the Hamster, and Custardfinger.  

In 2007 he delved into historical fiction with his award-winning book Here Lies Arthur, an alternative look at the King Arthur legend.  

Reeve said he was always fascinated by the illustrations as much as the writing and has striven to make his illustrations as palatable as possible for young readers.   

 

“Even tiny children looking at a picture book," he said, "are using their imaginations, gleaning clues from the images to understand what is happening, and perhaps using the throwaway details which the illustrator includes to add their own elements to the story."

 

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A Writer's Moment: Willfully Appearing

A Writer's Moment: Willfully Appearing:   “Let us forget such words, and all they mean, as Hatred, Bitterness and Rancor, Greed, Intolerance, Bigotry; let us ren...

Willfully Appearing

 

“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, born on Feb. 22, 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.”

 

Millay also wrote plays and prose and once said, “A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down.  If it is a good book nothing can hurt him.  If it is a bad book nothing can help him.”  Hers were good, and her poetry was even better.   For Saturday’s Poem, here is St. Vincent Millay’s

 

Afternoon on a hill

 

I will be the gladdest thing
   Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
   And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
   With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
   And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
   Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
   And then start down.

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A Writer's Moment: 'Really a Way of Thinking'

A Writer's Moment: '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 ...

'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

Black History is much more than a month and is reflective of us all each and every day.  None told this story better than Morrison, born in Ohio in  Feb., 1931.  As a novelist, editor and professor she shaped literature with the power of her epic themes, vivid dialogue and richly detailed characters. 

 

We will forever be in her debt for giving us such wonderful books as The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved.

 

 Toni Morrison

She was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 capping a writing life that also  included the Pulitzer Prize, American Book Award, Nobel Prize for her life’s body of work.  Her craftsmanship inspires writers to reach deeper within themselves in hopes of emulating even a small part of what she achieved on the page. 

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: A Teacher of 'Life'

A Writer's Moment: A Teacher of 'Life':   “A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again. ” – W.E.B. Du Bois   As Black History Month winds d...

A Teacher of 'Life'

  “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 on this date in 1868 and died in 1963.  

Du Bois’ collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, was a seminal work in African-American literature; and his 1935 magnum opus Black Reconstruction in America challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that blacks were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction Era.   He also wrote one of the first scientific treatises in the field of American sociology and published three autobiographies, each of which contains insightful essays on sociology, politics and history.

And, he was a major advocate for the education of African-American youth.   Concerned that textbooks used by African-American children ignored black history and culture, Du Bois created a monthly

 children's magazine, The Brownies' Book. Initially published in 1920.  It was aimed at black children, who Du Bois called "the children of the sun."

One of the founders of the NAACP, he was a longtime editor of that organization’s journal The Crisis, and as such published many influential pieces on African-American history and the struggle for Civil Rights, working tirelessly for what would become the Civil Rights Act, enacted less than a year after he died.   

 

“Education must not simply teach work,” Du Bois said.  “It must teach Life.“

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A Writer's Moment: Writing In The Margins of History

A Writer's Moment: Writing In The Margins of History: “I always try to find a story in the margins of history, but I don't like to do too much that's improbable.” – Philip Kerr A n...

Writing In The Margins of History

“I always try to find a story in the margins of history, but I don't like to do too much that's improbable.” – Philip Kerr

A native of Scotland, Kerr  was best known for the "Bernie Gunther" series of historical thrillers set primarily in Germany during the 1930s, World War II and the Cold War.  He authored some 50 books, including several nonfiction works and a dozen children's books with the Children of the Lamp series, under the name P.B. Kerr.  

Born on this date in 1956 (he died in 2018), Kerr started writing in Middle school and really never stopped.  In the early 1990s he was honored as one of Britain’s “Best Young Writers,” and in 2009 he won both the “RBA International Prize for Crime Writing” (worth nearly $200 thousand in cash) and the British Crime Writers' Association's “Ellis Peters Historic Crime Writing Award.”

He resided near Wimbledon and was a frequent essay contributor to The Sunday Times and The Evening Standard, although it was his writing “about the recent historical past,” that was his forte'. 

Kerr had this to say about writing historical fiction:   

 

“History asks us to imagine ourselves in a period, but it's a very different situation when you're in that period and faced with those situations. The hardest thing is to write about people. First and foremost, you have to encounter their humanity. That is the only way you can make them live as characters on the page.”

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Breathe, Cry Out & Sing'

A Writer's Moment: 'Breathe, Cry Out & Sing':   “The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” – Anais Nin Born in France on this date in ...

'Breathe, Cry Out & Sing'

 

“The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” – Anais Nin

Born in France on this date in 1903, Nin gravitated to writing early and started keeping detailed journals at age 11.  She didn’t stop until more than 60 years later at the time of her death, and much of what she kept in them became fodder for her long and impressive writing career.

Over her lifetime she wrote everything from essays to novels, critical studies to short stories and, of course, her well-known and often controversial takes on erotica.  Nin's most important works, in the judgment of both herself and scholars, are those diaries and journals, which provide a deeply explorative insight into her personal life and relationships.   So far 16 volumes of her journals have been published. “My ideas,” she once said, “usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.”  And, of course, she wrote down daily about the life that she lived. 

Shortly before her 1977 death, she was asked what should be the motivating factor for someone seeking to make a life as a writer.  Her answer was simple:   “If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.”

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: Inspiration, Perspiration, Desperation'

A Writer's Moment: Inspiration, Perspiration, Desperation':   “I always say three things make a writer: inspiration, obviously; perspiration, doing the work; and desperation. I'm not really fit ...

A Writer's Moment: 'Things That Touch Your Soul'

A Writer's Moment: 'Things That Touch Your Soul':   “If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you&...

'Things That Touch Your Soul'

 

“If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soul.” – Roger McGough

McGough, born in 1937, grew up in Liverpool, home to another rather well-known group of lads who made their way in the performance industry under the name  of The Beatles.  In the 1960s, McGough started making a name in his own right with the publication of the best-selling poetry book The Mersey Sound.   Since then he’s led a highly successful writing career as a performance poet, children’s author and playwright.  A broadcaster, too, he hosts the BBC’s “Poetry Please” show and still makes his home in Liverpool. 

 

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.
 
 
Roger McGough
 

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Inspiration, Perspiration, Desperation'

 

“I always say three things make a writer: inspiration, obviously; perspiration, doing the work; and desperation. I'm not really fit for anything else, or to have a real job. That fear drives me. The pressure has always been self inflicted.” – Harlan Coben

If you like sports and you like murder mysteries then you can’t help but like the writing of Harlan Coben, who found a very interesting way to combine the two.

Born in New Jersey in 1962, Coben was an athlete at Amherst College when he decided in his senior year that what he really wanted to do was write murder mysteries.  So he did. 

His thriller Play Dead was published in 1990, followed by Miracle Cure in 1991. He then began writing a series of thrillers featuring a former basketball player turned sports agent, Myron Bolitar, who often finds himself investigating murders involving his clients.  In the 2015 Coben created the British crime drama television show The Five and the French-British crime drama Safe which premiered on Netflix in 2018.  That year he signed a 5-year deal to develop 14 of his books into original Netflix series or films.  Five have been done so far.

 

Harlan Coben

His stories are a great example of how ordinary people can (and usually do) play a key role in resolving a problem, and his style is one that lets his reader get right into the action.  He said he likes giving the reader everything they’ll need to figure out the mystery while still keeping them guessing with multiple plot twists.

“A good crime novelist – any good novelist for that matter – should … play with your perceptions while showing you everything in plain sight.”

 

 

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