A Writer's Moment: 'An amazing literature'

A Writer's Moment: 'An amazing literature':   “Science fiction is an amazing literature: plot elements that you would think would be completely worn out by now keep ...

'An amazing literature'

 

“Science fiction is an amazing literature: plot elements that you would think would be completely worn out by now keep changing into surprising new forms.” – Connie Willis

 

Born in Colorado (where she still makes her home) on this date in 1945, Willis has won an incredible 11 Hugos and 7 Nebulas for her SciFi writing.  Her two-part 2010 novel Blackout/All Clear won both awards and made her the first writer to win a Hugo for every book in a series (the “Oxford Time Travel” series).  In 2011 she was named by the SciFi Writers Association as a “Grand Master,” their highest honor. 

                                                                

An English and elementary education major, she combined teaching with short story writing for more than a dozen years before turning to full-time writing in the 1980s. Her portfolio includes some two-dozen novels, and many, many dozens of short stories, essays, novellas and novelettes.  Her most recent work is 2023’s The Road to Roswell.

 

While much of her writing is grounded in the social sciences, she often weaves technology into her stories in order to prompt readers to question what impact it has on the world. 

An advocate of meticulous research and exquisite detail (check out her books Passages or Remake for terrific examples), she encourages new writers to do the same and never in just one take.  “I have never written anything in one draft, not even a grocery list,” she quipped, “although I have heard from friends that this is actually possible.”

A Writer's Moment: Is it a form of texting?

A Writer's Moment: Is it a form of texting?:   “Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true?” – Carol Ann Duffy   Born in ...

Just a form of texting?

 

“Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true?” – Carol Ann Duffy

 

Born in Scotland in December of 1955 Duffy is a poet, playwright, professor, and Britain’s first female Poet Laureate.   Among her popular and often-taught collections are Selling Manhattan, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award; Mean Time, winner of the Whitbread Poetry Award; and Rapture, winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize. 

                         
Calling the poem "a form of texting," she noted, "(It's) a perfecting of a feeling in language - a way of saying more with less.”  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Duffy’s, 

 

                           The Look

 

The heron's the look of the river.
The moon's the look of the night.
The sky's the look of forever.
Snow is the look of white.

The bees are the look of the honey.
The wasp is the look of pain.
The clown is the look of funny.
Puddles are the look of rain.

The whale is the look of the ocean.
The grave is the look of the dead.
The wheel is the look of motion.
Blood is the look of red.

The rose is the look of the garden.
The girl is the look of the school.
The snake is the look of the Gorgon.
Ice is the look of cool.

The clouds are the look of the weather.
The hand is the look of the glove.
The bird is the look of the feather.
You are the look of love.

A Writer's Moment: Thought for the Day

A Writer's Moment: Thought for the Day:                       “Writing well means never having to say, ‘I guess you had to be there.’"                      ...

Thought for the Day

 

                “Writing well means never having to say, ‘I guess you had to be there.’" 

                                         -  Jef Mallett, author and creator of the comic strip Frazz

A Writer's Moment: 'Being transported to another universe'

A Writer's Moment: 'Being transported to another universe':   “Being a novelist is the adult version of a kid creating a make-believe world. But unlike a child, a writer of fiction ...

'Being transported to another universe'

 

“Being a novelist is the adult version of a kid creating a make-believe world. But unlike a child, a writer of fiction has to come up with a structured story, one that has as much meaning for others as it has for her.” – Susan Isaacs

Born in Brooklyn, NY, in December of 1943, Isaacs grew up in New York City and started as a freelance political speechwriter and editor for Seventeen.  In her mid-30s she decided to try her hand at fiction. Good idea. Her first novel, Compromising Positions, was a Book of the Month Club main selection, a New York Times bestseller, and launched her long, successful creative writing career.

 

She’s now authored 17 bestselling books, the latest being this year’s Bad, Bad Seymour Brown in her Corie Geller series.  She’s also written numerous essays, screenplays, and a work of cultural criticism, Brave Dames and Wimpettes: What Women are Really Doing on Page and Screen.   In addition to books and screenplays, Isaacs often does reviews for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and Newsday.

 

“There are days where I lose track of time, of place, of everything else,” she said about being a writer.  “I've been transported to another universe.”

 

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Slow down and consider things'

A Writer's Moment: 'Slow down and consider things':   “The privilege of being a writer is that you have this opportunity to slow down and to consider things.” —Chris Abani  ...

'Slow down and consider things'

 

“The privilege of being a writer is that you have this opportunity to slow down and to consider things.”—Chris Abani 

 

Born in Nigeria on this date in 1966, Abani is the award-winning author of half-dozen novels; numerous novellas, short stories and plays; and 8 books of poetry.  He started writing young and was so good at skewering those in power that he was imprisoned 3 times by the Nigerian government.  The first time came after his first novel– Masters of the Board – came out at age 19, when he was accused of attempting to overthrow the government.  

 

His second novel, Sirocco, published shortly after his release, got him right back in jail where he continued writing and after release the second time he produced a number of anti-government plays that were considered so inflammatory they got him back in prison, this time sentenced to death.  But he escaped to England where he continued his education and writing after being awarded a PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, the literary world’s response to those injustices. 

 

Since emigrating to the U.S. and eventually earning dual citizenship, he has won some three dozen major awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction, the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and a California Book Award.  His 2015 novel, The Secret History of Las Vegas, won the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Paperback Original.

 

An avid supporter of the World Wide Web as a writing and publishing resource, he noted, “Like most writers, I find the Web is a wonderful distraction.   Who doesn't need that last minute research before writing?”

A Writer's Moment: 'Joy should dominate a writer's life'

A Writer's Moment: 'Joy should dominate a writer's life':   “As a writer, I need an enormous amount of time alone. Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the...

'Joy should dominate a writer's life'

 

“As a writer, I need an enormous amount of time alone. Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It's a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write. Having anybody watching that or attempting to share it with me would be grisly.”– Paul Rudnick 

  

Born in New Jersey on Dec. 29, 1957 Rudnick is an American playwright, novelist, screenwriter and essayist.  First catapulted to fame for his work Addams Family Values, his plays have been produced both on an off Broadway and around the world.    “Line by line, Mr. Rudnick may be the funniest writer for the stage in the United States today,” noted one New York Times reviewer.

An award-winner for numerous stage and screen works, his humorous essays appear regularly in The New Yorker.         He's also authored half-dozen novels, the most recent being Playing The Palace and Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style.

Rudnick says joy should be part of every writer’s life.  “There is only one blasphemy,” he said, “and that is the refusal to experience joy.”

'Your eyes know tomorrow'

“All things by immortal power. near or far, to each other linked are, that thou canst not stir a flower, without the troubling of a star.” – Francis Thompson

Born in England in December of 1859, Thompson wrote three books of poetry, and a number of short stories and essays, including an award-winning one on the poet Percy Bysche Shelley.   Perhaps best known for writing phrases that became the theme for other writings or actions, his term “With all deliberate speed,” was used in the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Brown vs. Board of Education.  His phrase “Love is a many-splendored thing” became the title of a novel by Han Suyin, a popular 1955 movie, and hit song by The Four Aces.  Authors J.R.R. Tolkien and Madeline L’Engle both cited him as a key influence on their writing.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Thompson’s,

 

Go, songs

               Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play; 

               Go, children of swift joy and tardy sorrow: 

               And some are sung, and that was yesterday, 

               And some are unsung, and that may be tomorrow.

Go forth; and if it be o'er stony way, 

               Old joy can lend what newer grief must borrow: 

               And it was sweet, and that was yesterday, 

               And sweet is sweet, though purchased with sorrow.

 

               Go, songs, and come not back from your far way: 

               And if men ask you why ye smile and sorrow, 

               Tell them ye grieve, for your hearts know Today, 

               Tell them ye smile, for your eyes know Tomorrow.

A Writer's Moment: 'Touching the heart of the world'

A Writer's Moment: 'Touching the heart of the world':   “Don't forget - no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell.” – Charles de ...

'Touching the heart of the world'

 

“Don't forget - no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell.” – Charles de Lint
 

Born in The Netherlands on this date in 1951, de Lint emigrated to Canada with his family that same year.    Multi-talented and multi-faceted, he has published many dozens of books plus numerous novellas, short stories, works of poetry, and song lyrics.  Among his works are the best-selling The Newford Series (Dreams Underfoot, Widdershins, The Blue Girl, The Onion Girl, Moonlight and Vines, and Someplace to be Flying), and stand-alone novels like Moonheart, The Mystery of Grace, and A Circle of Cats. 

  

Also a noted essayist, critic and folklorist he frequently writes book reviews for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and has served as a judge for the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Bram Stoker Award.  

A frequent lecturer and teacher at creative writing workshops in both Canada and the U.S., he and his wife Mary Ann Harris have produced several musical albums (he plays several different instruments).  And, he maintains a wonderful exuberance about his writing.

“Life is like art. You have to work hard to keep it simple and still have meaning,” de Lint said.

“I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile.”              

A Writer's Moment: 'Not just what, but how'

A Writer's Moment: 'Not just what, but how':   “My greatest joy comes from creativity: from feeling that I have been able to identify a certain aspect of human nature...

'Not just what, but how'

 

“My greatest joy comes from creativity: from feeling that I have been able to identify a certain aspect of human nature and crystallize a phenomenon in words.” – Alain de Botton

 

Swiss-born (on this date in 1969) British-based author de Botton authored the massive best-seller Essays in Love, which in turn led to the hit movie My Last Five Girlfriends, based on Essays.

 

De Botton’s books, which usually emphasize philosophy's relevance to everyday life, have almost all been best sellers, but none to equal the romantic comedy Essays, which has sold well over 2 million copies.

 

Positive reviews of his books attest that he has made literature, philosophy and art more accessible to a wider audience, as has his popularity as a guest lecturer and television documentarian, usually based on his own works.                                                 

 

“I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it . . .  the communication of ideas.”

A Writer's Moment: 'What makes her writing distinctive'

A Writer's Moment: 'What makes her writing distinctive':   “The nice thing about writing a novel is you take your time, you sit with the character sometimes nine years, you look very deeply at a s...

'What makes her writing distinctive'

 

“The nice thing about writing a novel is you take your time, you sit with the character sometimes nine years, you look very deeply at a situation, unlike in real life when we just kind of snap something out.” – Sandra Cisneros

Born on Dec. 20, 1954 Cisneros – whose name means Hope in English – is a Mexican-American writer best known for her novel The House on Mango Street and short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories.

“One press account said I was an overnight success. I thought that was the longest night I've ever spent,” she said after spending many years developing House on Mango Street while working as a teacher, counselor, college recruiter, and poet-in-the-schools.

 She is the recipient of numerous writing awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Ford Foundation “Art of Change" fellowship.          

“I am a woman, and I am a Latina,” she said.  “Those are the things that make my writing distinctive. Those are the things that give my writing power.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Because life is ambiguous'

A Writer's Moment: 'Because life is ambiguous':   “Songwriting's a weird game. I never intended to become one - I fell into this by mistake, and I can't get out...

'Because life is ambiguous'

 

“Songwriting's a weird game. I never intended to become one - I fell into this by mistake, and I can't get out of it. It fascinates me. I like to point out the rawer points of life.” – Keith Richards

 

Born on this date in1943, in the London suburb of Dartford, Kent, Richards started life on the go as his family was temporarily evacuated from their home during the Nazi bombing and rocket campaign of 1944.   In 1951, while attending primary school, Richards first met and befriended Mick Jagger in what would not only become a lifetime friendship but also the start of a musical dynasty, leading ultimately to their being enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

 

The pair founded the Rolling Stones as a rhythm and blues and jazz group when they were still in their teens and never looked back, although it wasn’t until they changed their style to straight rock in 1964 that they really hit their stride on songs mostly written by Richards, the biggest being I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.

 

Despite their image as the “anti-Beatles,” Richards said “It was a very, very fruitful and great relationship between the Stones and The Beatles. It was very, very friendly.”

 

While writing music is his forte’, Richards also wrote his autobiography and memoir Life, which was a worldwide bestseller and showed remarkable command of writing style.  But, like some of his songs, it was jabbed at by some critics as being a bit ambiguous.

 

 “I look for ambiguity when I'm writing," he said, "because life is ambiguous.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Loving things for what they are'

A Writer's Moment: 'Loving things for what they are':  "We love the things we love for what they are." - Robert Frost    One of the most famous “winter” poems was actually written by ...

'Loving things for what they are'

 "We love the things we love for what they are." - Robert Frost 

 

One of the most famous “winter” poems was actually written by Frost on a mild morning in June.  Frost wrote the poem after working all night on his long poem New Hampshire, the foundation for his 1923 book by the same name.  The book would win the 1924 Pulitzer Prize. 

 

After a long night at his desk, Frost went outdoors to view the sunrise and instead, clearly saw (in his mind) the scene that became his famous winter poem.  He said he hurried back inside and wrote the poem down in just minutes.   For Saturday’s Poem here is Frost’s,   

  

   Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

 

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though.

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

 

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

 

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

  

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep.

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

A Writer's Moment: 'Going beyond – to the impossible'

A Writer's Moment: 'Going beyond – to the impossible':   “I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.” – Arthur C. Clark...

'Going beyond – to the impossible'

 

“I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.” – Arthur C. Clarke

Born in England on Dec. 16, 1917 Clarke wrote dozens of best-selling science fiction books and short stories but is perhaps best known for penning the screenplay for one of the top 100 movies of all time, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” 

 

A lifelong proponent of space travel, he joined the British Interplanetary Society while still a teenager and ultimately served for many years as its chairman.  Not only a writer but also a gifted thinker and planner, he proposed a prototype satellite communication system as early as 1945.

 

Clarke emigrated from England to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1956 to pursue his interest in scuba diving.  There, he discovered the underwater ruins of the ancient Koneswaram Temple off its coast. 

 

The author of 21 novels, 15 nonfiction books, and 12 collections of short stories, Clarke also hosted several popular television shows, including the award-winning “Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World.”   He was knighted for his achievements by Queen Elizabeth, named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, and awarded Sri Lanka’s highest civilian honor for his achievements and service to his adopted nation. 

  

 “The only way to discover the limits of the possible,” Clarke once said, “is to go beyond them into the impossible.”

A Writer's Moment: Starting with 'one good sentence'

A Writer's Moment: Starting with 'one good sentence':   “Journalism taught me how to write a sentence that would make someone want to read the next one.    I do feel that if y...

Starting with 'one good sentence'

 

“Journalism taught me how to write a sentence that would make someone want to read the next one.   I do feel that if you can write one good sentence and then another good sentence and then another, you end up with a good story.” – Amy Hempel

 

Born in Chicago on Dec. 14, 1951 Hempel spent her formative years in California, the setting for much of her fiction.  She has written for numerous magazines and newspapers while also teaching – currently as Professor of Creative Writing at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas.

 

One of only a handful of U.S. writers to build a reputation solely on short fiction, she jump-started her career by producing what has arguably been one of the most anthologized short stories ever written, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried.”  That 1985 story and nearly every other one of her first 20 years’ efforts are in her award-winning The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel.  It’s truly a primer on how short stories should be written.   Hempel’s most recent book is 2019’s Sing to It.

“I'm not first and foremost interested in story and the ‘What-happens?’, but I'm interested in who's telling it and how they're telling it and the effects of whatever happened on the characters and the people,” she said about her writing style.

  

“I’ve always known when I start a story what the last line is.  It’s always been the case . . . I don’t know how it’s going to get there, but I seem to need that destination.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Switching on the writing light'

A Writer's Moment: 'Switching on the writing light':   “My earliest, most impactful encounter with a book was when I was seven and awoke early on Christmas morning to find Roald Dahl's Cha...

'Switching on the writing light'

 

“My earliest, most impactful encounter with a book was when I was seven and awoke early on Christmas morning to find Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in my stocking. I had never been so excited by the sight of a book - and have possibly never been since!” – Sophie Kinsella

  

Born in England on this date in 1969, Madeleine "Sophie" Wickham writes under the loosely termed style  “Chick Lit” through her 10-book Shopaholic series, translated into more than 30 languages. Her newest in the series is 2019's The Christmas Shopaholic.

  

“When I had the idea for Shopaholic, it was as though a light switched on,” she said.  “I realized I actually wanted to write comedy. No apologies, no trying to be serious, just full-on entertainment. The minute I went with that and threw myself into it, it felt just like writing my first book again - it was really liberating.”

Kinsella's roots are in financial journalism but she branched into creative writing at age 24 with the best-seller The Tennis Party (re-released in 2012 as 40 Love).  Since then, she has written nearly three dozen novels, the latest being this year's The Burnout.

 

Glad she started as a journalist, she said journalism                     

is a good foundation.  “Being a journalist is good if you want to write books: it teaches you to get beyond the blank screen. My books have been described as froth, but there's scope to be witty and ironic about everything in life.”