A Writer's Moment: 'Always Be Entertaining'

A Writer's Moment: 'Always Be Entertaining':   “I think good art should always be entertaining, or at least give pleasure of some sort. And my chief goal as a writer has always been to...

'Always Be Entertaining'

 

“I think good art should always be entertaining, or at least give pleasure of some sort. And my chief goal as a writer has always been to tell a good story and give my readers a good time.” – Kenneth Oppel

Born in Port Alberni, Canada on this date in 1967, Oppel has had a distinguished career as a children’s and young adult writer.  Among his many awards are Canada’s Governor General's Literary Prize and the Printz Honor Award from the American Library Association (both for Airborn and The Times); and a Best Book for Young Adults from the ALA for Skybreaker.

Currently a resident of Toronto, Oppel started writing as a teen, penning a humorous story about a boy addicted to video games.  His first book, Colin's Fantastic Video Adventure, was published just as he was starting college.  While in college he wrote his second bestseller, The Live-Forever Machine, for a creative writing class project. 

         One of his most creative and uplifting stories – about a special bond between a teenage boy and a young chimpanzee – is Half Brother, winner of numerous major awards.  It was a story that also touched Oppel’s heart as he wrote it.

“The more I worked on Half Brother,” he said, “the more it seemed to me the story was really about love in all its possible forms - how and why we decide to bestow it, or withdraw it; how we decide what is more worthy of being loved, and what is less.  How we are masters of conditional love."

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: Keeping Storytelling Fresh

A Writer's Moment: Keeping Storytelling Fresh:   “I think stories do have an ending. I think they need to have an ending eventually because that is a story: a beginning, middle and end. ...

Keeping Storytelling Fresh

 

“I think stories do have an ending. I think they need to have an ending eventually because that is a story: a beginning, middle and end. If you draw out the end too long, I think storytelling can get tired.” – Melissa Rosenberg

Born on Aug. 28, 1962 Rosenberg is an American screenwriter who has won Emmys, Writers Guild of America, and Peabody Awards for her work in film and television. 

A California native, she started writing plays as a child, getting neighborhood kids to perform them and planting the writing bug that continued on through adulthood.  After studying and working in New York, she moved back to California, graduated from the University of Southern California and began her screenwriting career.

Among her successes were the immensely successful TV series Dexter and The Twilight Saga; Jessica Jones and episodes of many other sitcoms and drama series; and the dance movie Step Up.  She has becn a strong advocate for writing                                        

 in the schools, particularly helping young

 girls develop skills that can be used for careers such as her own.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re the smartest person in the room: If you’re not someone who people want to be around, you won’t get far. Likewise for helping those in line behind you. I take seriously my role as a mentor to young female filmmakers – I make sure my time is tithed.”

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Be Positive and Success Will Follow'

A Writer's Moment: 'Be Positive and Success Will Follow':   “A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything on real issues.” –   Theodore Roosevelt Ev...

'Be Positive and Success Will Follow'

 

“A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything on real issues.” –  Theodore Roosevelt

Even 125 years ago American statesman, author, explorer, soldier, naturalist, and reformer Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt was right on the mark with his observance of what makes politics so frustrating for the average citizen yet today.

 

Born in 1858, Roosevelt was a prolific author, writing with passion on subjects ranging from foreign policy to the importance of the national park system. Roosevelt was also an avid reader of poetry. Poet Robert Frost said that Roosevelt "was our kind. He quoted poetry to me. He knew poetry."

 

Roosevelt wrote 18 books (each in several editions), including his autobiography and left us with myriad inspirational examples of how to live life, plus sayings on the same.

 

“If you believe you can,” Roosevelt advised, “you're already halfway there.”

 

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'In Cathedrals of Imagination'

A Writer's Moment: 'In Cathedrals of Imagination':   “Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the fac...

'In Cathedrals of Imagination'

 

“Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination.” – Janet Frame

Born in New Zealand on this date in 1924, Nene Janet Paterson Clutha, better known by her pen name Janet Frame, wrote novels, short stories, poetry, juvenile fiction, and an autobiography, but her biggest celebrity came from her dramatic personal history.  Hospitalized for years in a psychiatric facility and mistakenly diagnosed as schizophrenic, she began writing whenever she could.   Just days before she was scheduled for a lobotomy, her debut publication of short stories was unexpectedly awarded her nation’s top literary prize.

“That,” she said in perhaps the biggest understatement ever, “changed everything.”

  

With her book's success and prize money, she moved to Europe, ultimately had the schizophrenia diagnosis debunked and lived to age 79 becoming one of the most prolific and rewarded authors in history.  All told, she wrote  two dozen novels, many nonfiction works, hundreds of short stories and poems, countless essays and a 3-volume autobiography that became the film An Angel At My Table.

“As a teen, people thought I might be a teacher,” she said.  “I wanted to be a poet.”

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Loving With The Mind'

A Writer's Moment: 'Loving With The Mind':   “To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind.” – Theophile Gautier   Born on Aug. 30, ...

'Loving With The Mind'

 

“To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind.” – Theophile Gautier

 

Born on Aug. 30, 1811 Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist and journalist, who excelled as an art critic.  Gautier spent the majority of his career at La Presse and was strongly committed to the idea that the critic should have the ability to describe the art so that the reader might "see" the piece through his description.   And, he wrote poetry.  “I like to think that art and poetry are intertwined,” he said.  “The word poet literally means maker: anything which is not well made doesn't exist.”   For Saturday’s Poem here are lines from,

 

Unknown Shores

I may not ask again:
where would you like to go?

Have you a star; she says,
O any faithful sun
Where love does not eclipse?

Ah child, if that star shines;
it is in chartless skies,
I do not know of such!

But come, where will you go?

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: Impacting a Lifetime . . . and beyond

A Writer's Moment: Impacting a Lifetime . . . and beyond:   “Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.” – Alduous Hux...

Impacting a Lifetime . . . and beyond

 

“Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.” – Alduous Huxley

Born on this date in 1894, Huxley was a renowned writer and philosopher during his lifetime and a continuing influence on the world's thinking ever since. 

Few people have had as great an impact on the world’s thinkng.  His novel Brave New World continues to be ranked by those who do such rankings as somewhere between the Number 1 and Number 5 greatest fictional work written in the English language in the 20^th Century.

 

Huxley was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 7 different years.   He kept striving, through his many forms of writing, to find “the right words” to share his hopes and fears for the world and to encourage each individual to do his or her best to make it a better place.

“There is only one corner of the Universe you can be certain of improving,” he said,  “and that's your own self.”

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'The Experience of the Ages'

A Writer's Moment: 'The Experience of the Ages':   “The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk sayings and ...

'The Experience of the Ages'

 

“The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.” –  William Feather 

Feather, born on this date in 1889, was an American

 publisher and author based in Cleveland, OH, where he built a publishing empire and shared dozens of quotes and fables through his writings.

Born in Jamestown, NY, Feather came to Cleveland in 1903, and after earning a degree from Western Reserve University in 1910, he began working as a reporter for the Cleveland Press. In 1916, he established the William Feather Magazine while continuing to write for other magazines like H.L. Mencken's The American Mercury.  His successful printing business produced several of his own books, including the highly sought-after How to Get Ahead.

He also wrote the best-selling The Business of Life and one of the first “How-To" guides, How To Set Up a Family Budget.   A spokesman and advocate for books of all kinds, he espoused thrift, industry, promptness, perseverance, and dependability through his writings. 

  

“Books,” he said, “open your mind, broaden your mind, and strengthen you as nothing else can.  Finishing a good book is like leaving a good friend.”

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Trusting the Writing Process'

A Writer's Moment: 'Trusting the Writing Process':   “For several decades, I believed it was necessary to be extraordinary if you wanted to write, and since I wasn't, I gave up my ambiti...

'Trusting the Writing Process'

 

“For several decades, I believed it was necessary to be extraordinary if you wanted to write, and since I wasn't, I gave up my ambition and settled down to a life of reading.” – Diane Setterfield

 

 

Like most writers, Setterfield’s enjoyment of reading eventually led her to the keyboard and she found success in the writing field.  Born on this date in 1964, Setterfield is a British author whose 2006 debut novel The Thirteenth Tale became a New York Times No. 1 best-seller and well-received BBC Television film.  To date it has been published in 38 countries and sold millions of copies.   Her most recent novel is Once Upon A River.

    A native of Oxford, she studied and then taught French literature for a number of years before trying her hand at writing, keeping a diary along the way.  She said that habit not only got her into a daily writing mode but also has provided grist for her writing mill.    

“You have to relax, write what you write,” she said as her advice to aspiring writers.  “It sounds easy but it's really, really hard. One of the things it took me longest to learn was to trust the writing process.”

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A Writer's Moment: A 'Voice' for the Reader

A Writer's Moment: A 'Voice' for the Reader:   “Choosing the narrator for a first-person story like ' Downriver' is a crucial decision because the voice has...

A 'Voice' for the Reader

 

“Choosing the narrator for a first-person story like 'Downriver' is a crucial decision because the voice has to be one the reader wants to listen to, and the voice has to be a match for the emotion you want the story to carry”  – Will Hobbs

 

Born on this date in 1947, Hobbs grew up in a military family, moving often.  When his dad was stationed in Alaska, “I fell in love with mountains, rivers, fishing, baseball, and books,” he said.  After college and marriage, he settled in the southwest mountains of Colorado where he began teaching and writing.

 

The author of 22 novels for “Tweens” and young adult readers, as well as two picture book stories, Hobbs credits his sense of audience to 14 years teaching junior high reading and English. When he turned to writing, he set his stories mostly in wild places he knew from firsthand experience.

 

“So much of writing is discovery,” he said.   “Sometimes I feel like a rat in a maze, trying to discover the way out. My little heart is beating, and I'm racing down a path thinking, this is the route, it will get me there, as I turn this way and then that.”

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