A Writer's Moment: 'Some books are a revelation'

A Writer's Moment: 'Some books are a revelation':   Some books are a revelation. They come along at just the right time for just the right reasons. They become heart books and soul books. ...

'Some books are a revelation'

 

Some books are a revelation. They come along at just the right time for just the right reasons. They become heart books and soul books. – Judith Tarr

A writer of historical and epic fantasies, Tarr was born in Maine on this date in 1955.  She has won awards and legions of followers under three names – her own, and as Caitlin Brennan and Kathleen Bryan.

She was a World Fantasy Award and Locus Award nominee for her Alexander the Great novel, Lord of the Two Lands, and won the Crawford Award for The Isle of Glass in her Hound and the Falcon trilogy. As Brennan she wrote The Mountain’s Call and sequels, and as Bryan The Serpent and the Rose and its sequels.   

Tarr raises Lippizan horses at her Dancing Horse Farm in Arizona.  The romantic fantasies that she writes as Brennan have featured "dancing horses" modeled on those that she raises.

 

            

 

 "I like going back in time and writing historical fantasty," she said.  "I use some real historical

characters as a background to give depth to the fantasy. And I throw my fictional characters into

the midst of this, and, so far, it has turned out interesting.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Creating sunshine is the artist's business'

A Writer's Moment: 'Creating sunshine is the artist's business':   “It is the artist's business to create sunshine when the sun fails.   He who has a sun in himself won’t seek for it somewhere else.” ...

'Creating sunshine is the artist's business'

 

“It is the artist's business to create sunshine when the sun fails.  He who has a sun in himself won’t seek for it somewhere else.” – Romain Rolland

Nobel Prize-winner Rolland was born in France on this date in 1866.  He wrote across the spectrum producing award-winning works as a novelist, essayist, art historian and dramatist, producing works for the stage that could be seen by "ordinary" people.   He was an early leader in making theater productions accessible to all and not just reserved for the rich and famous. 

His friend Sigmund Freud said he was profoundly influenced by Rolland’s views and a great admirer of Rolland’s epic (10-volume) novel Jean-Christophe, written over an 8-year period and setting the stage for his Nobel Prize, which he earned in 1915. 

 

“Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth but already to possess it,”  Rolland once noted.   

“Skepticism, riddling the faith of yesterday, prepares the way for the faith of tomorrow.” 

 

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Something magical happened'

A Writer's Moment: 'Something magical happened':   “To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of langu...

'Something magical happened'

 

“To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.” –  John Albert Holmes

Born in January, 1904 Holmes was a poet, critic, and teacher – the profession he cherished as a 30-year professor at Massachusetts’ prestigious Tufts University.  There, he taught both literature and poetry, greatly admired by students and fellow faculty members. "When he taught," wrote Jerome Barron, "something magical happened. He made you want to write and understand poetry. He didn't lecture; he encouraged."  

 

His wrote 10 volumes of poetry and a book on writing poetry.  His final book, The Fortune Teller, came out shortly before his sudden death in 1962.     For Saturday’s Poem, here is Holmes’,

 

                                          Noon Waking

 

All that long April morning while you slept

The poplar trees were dripping in the rain.

The room’s cool indoor darkness kindly kept

The quick dreams hurrying through your brain.

Lying so late asleep, you could not say

When the slow rainy wind began to stir,

Or when I rose in the dark and went away,

Or what the last three words I whispered were.

 

The flight of stumbling dream broke and stopped going –

You half sat up in bed to blink and listen.

You heard, like me, the wind in gray skies blowing,

And saw the three tall poplars drip and glisten.

 

Far on the rutted road when you awoke,

I heard, I heard, the shattered words you spoke.

A Writer's Moment: 'The wish to create order out of disorder'

A Writer's Moment: 'The wish to create order out of disorder':   “I don't think writers choose the genre, the genre chooses us. I wrote out of the wish to create order out of disor...

'The wish to create order out of disorder'

 

“I don't think writers choose the genre, the genre chooses us. I wrote out of the wish to create order out of disorder, the liking of a pattern.” – P.D. James

 

James, author of more than two dozen books, was born in England in 1920.  The multiple award-winning writer said once she "knew" her genre, setting each story was not a problem because settings can be anywhere.  She said that since all fiction is largely autobiographical, the writer just has to draw upon settings from his or her own life.  "Write what you know," is an old writing guideline and it definitely holds true for the setting.

 

And while "setting" the book usually doesn’t happen overnight and often can be a messy process, it’s a key part of the creative process that has led to everything from our neighbor’s “memoirs” to Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.

 

“Don't just plan to write -- write," James said.   "It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A well-cleaned piece of glass'

A Writer's Moment: 'A well-cleaned piece of glass':   One more post about Ralph Keyes, born in 1945 and often cited as THE key resource person by writers trying to build up ...

'A well-cleaned piece of glass'

 

One more post about Ralph Keyes, born in 1945 and often cited as THE key resource person by writers trying to build up their courage or stamina to write.  If you ever find yourself struggling to put words on paper, his book The Courage To Write might be the guidebook to turn to.

 

And if you’re looking for information about the hows, whys and wheres of famous quotes, his book on the topic – Nice Guys Finish Seventh – has often been called “the best book on the origin of quotations ever researched and compiled.”  As the title implies, the old saying “Nice Guys Finish Last” never started out that way at all.  And a couple other examples from its pages:

 

      “Any man who hates dogs and children can’t be all bad,” was said about W.C. Fields, not by him.

“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” was actually a slogan of UCLA coach Red Sanders, not the Green Bay Packers’ Coach Vince Lombardi, who simply adapted it for himself.

  

As Keyes immutable "Law of the Misquotation" implies, the original quote often is quite a bit off our common usage. 

 

"The longer I write," Keyes said, “the simpler I'd like my writing to be: a well cleaned piece of glass through which the reader can see clearly to the content inside."

A Writer's Moment: 'It's a magical experience'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's a magical experience':   “What is true for book publishing is true for civilization: the books that survive the test of time are humanity's backlist, our coll...

'It's a magical experience'

 

“What is true for book publishing is true for civilization: the books that survive the test of time are humanity's backlist, our collective memory.” – Jason Epstein

 When it comes to books and their history, Epstein, who was born in 1928, led one of the most creative careers in book publishing in the last half of the 20^th century.   The creator of Anchor Books, which launched the so-called “paperback revolution,” he established what became known as “Trade” paperbacks (the larger format size).  Epstein also co-founded The New York Review of Books, the  Library of America, prestigious publisher of American classics, and The Reader's Catalog, precursor to online bookselling.

He edited such well-known novelists like E. L. Doctorow, Philip Roth, and Gore Vidal and was a major contributor of essays to the writing world.

Author of the bestseller Eating: A Memoir, he was the first recipient of the National Book Award for Distinguished Service to American Letters, received The Curtis Benjamin Award of the Association of American Publishers for "creative publishing," and was given the lifetime achievement award from the National Book Critic’s Circle before his death in 2022.

 
Epstein was a Champion for local, independent bookstores.   "A civilization without retail bookstores is unimaginable. Like shrines and other sacred meeting places, bookstores are essential artifacts of human nature. The feel of a book taken from the shelf and held in the hand is a magical experience, linking writer to reader."

A Writer's Moment: 'Written large in her works'

A Writer's Moment: 'Written large in her works':   “Fiction is like a spider’s web attached -- ever so slightly perhaps but still attached -- to life at all four corners .”   – Virginia Wo...

'Written large in her works'

 

“Fiction is like a spider’s web attached -- ever so slightly perhaps but still attached -- to life at all four corners.”  – Virginia Woolf

  

Born in England in January of 1882, Woolf has often been credited with developing the  “stream of consciousness” writing genre', alongside her contemporaries James Joyce and Joseph Conrad.  Both a feminist and a modernist, her novels often ignored traditional plots to follow the inner lives and musings of her characters.    

 

Woolf's writing has attracted many admirers and perhaps an equal number of haters.  In her own time (she died in 1941), her writing was banned by some countries, including Adolf Hitler's Germany.    Her most well known works are To The Lighthouse and A Room of One’s Own. 

A great essayist, too, she once noted “A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.”  

                                 

But it was fiction writing where Woolf made her lasting mark and for which she is still studied today.  She said she found herself intrigued by and drawn into writing fiction because of how it so keenly wove together thoughts and reality.   

 

“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.”

A Writer's Moment: A wonderful form of therapy

A Writer's Moment: A wonderful form of therapy:   “Fear is felt by writers at every level. Anxiety accompanies the first word they put on paper and the last.” – Ralph Keyes  Keyes , ...

A wonderful form of therapy

 

“Fear is felt by writers at every level. Anxiety accompanies the first word they put on paper and the last.” – Ralph Keyes 

Keyes, born in Ohio in January of 1945, is a lecturer and author of some 20 books including Is There Life After High School?,  adapted as a Broadway musical and often-produced by theater groups across the United States. His book The Courage to Write has become a standard for aspiring writers and in college coursework.   

 

A graduate of Antioch College he now makes his home in Oregon.

“I’m often asked why I write so often about ‘negative’ subjects: tensions between fathers and sons, adolescent angst, time pressure, etc.?" Keyes noted in The Courage to Write.  

 

"My answer is that exploring such topics on paper helps me get rid of them. Writing can be wonderful therapy, and cheap at the price. At the very least, you eventually get bored by thinking about anxious topics and want to move on.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Hearing the soul's suffering'

A Writer's Moment: 'Hearing the soul's suffering':   “There's a reason poets often say, 'Poetry saved my life,' for often the blank page is the only one listeni...

'Hearing the soul's suffering'

 

“There's a reason poets often say, 'Poetry saved my life,' for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul's suffering, the only one registering the story completely, the only one receiving all softly and without condemnation.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Estés’ works, published in 37 languages, includes Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of The Wild Woman Archetype, a New York Times' bestseller for a remarkable 145 weeks.  From that work for Saturday’s Poem, here is,  

 

Rainmaker: you could be the water

 

By the scent of water alone,
the withered vine comes back to life,
and thus…wherever the land is dry and hard,
you could be the water;
or you could be the iron blade
disking the earth open;
or you could be the acequia,
the mother ditch, carrying the water
from the river to the fields
to grow the flowers for the farmers;
or you could be the honest engineer
mapping the dams that must be taken down,
and those dams which could remain to serve
the venerable all, instead of only the very few.
You could be the battered vessel
for carrying the water by hand;
or you could be the one
who stores the water.
You could be the one who
protects the water,
or the one who blesses it,
or the one who pours it.
Or you could be the tired ground
that receives it;
or you could be the scorched seed
that drinks it;
or you could be the vine,
green-growing overland,
in all your wild audacity…

A Writer's Moment: 'Just the right word, or phrase'

A Writer's Moment: 'Just the right word, or phrase':   “They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” – Edgar Allan Poe Poe was born in B...

'Just the right word, or phrase'

 

“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” – Edgar Allan Poe

Poe was born in Boston on this date in 1809.   A key figure in the worldwide Romanticism movement, he was both a poet and one of America's earliest writers of short mysteries, many of which were macabre in nature.

The first well-known American writer to try to make a living by writing alone, Poe had spurts of decent amounts of income followed by periods of destitution.  Ultimately, his lack of income may have been a contributing factor to his early death.  But the actual cause of his death at age 40 has never been determined, and has been the subject of many movies and “whodunit?” books.

Poe probably would have liked that.  He enjoyed writing both a good mystery and a good detective story.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle noted, "Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed . . . Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?"  The Mystery Writers of America have named their annual awards for excellence, "Edgars.”

His use of  “just the right word or turn of phrase” also might reflect back to his love of poetry.                           He once noted,  “I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Great worlds to explore'

A Writer's Moment: 'Great worlds to explore':   “There are great books in this world, and great worlds in books.” – Anne Bronte   Both novelist and poet, the youn...

'Great worlds to explore'

 

“There are great books in this world, and great worlds in books.” – Anne Bronte

 

Both novelist and poet, the youngest member of the Brontë literary family (her sisters Emily and Charlotte also were widely published and read during her short lifetime), Anne was born on Jan. 17, 1820.  She died at age 29 from tuberculosis and the flu, only a few months after the death of her sister Emily from a similar malady. 

 

Her novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, published just months before she died, was considered both brilliant - for its complex, multi-layered plot - and shocking, especially in that staid Victorian era.  So, naturally, it was an instant hit and sold out in just weeks. 

 

 Still studied in writing programs around the globe, Tenant’s depiction of alcoholism and debauchery was both disturbing and an awakening to 19th-century sensibilities, especially in its revelation about the treatment of women.

 

In issuing a call to action from her readers, she wrote:  “No generous mind delights to oppress the weak, but rather to cherish and protect.”

A Writer's Moment: Quiet routine; powerful results

A Writer's Moment: Quiet routine; powerful results:   “You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about.” – William Stafford   Stafford, who was born in K...

Quiet routine; powerful results

 

“You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about.” – William Stafford

 

Stafford, who was born in Kansas on this date in 1914, had a quiet daily ritual of writing, much of it focused on the ordinary, but powerfully presented through his writing.  

A close friend and collaborator of Minnesota poet Robert Bly, Stafford’s writing career started late in life (he was 46 when he first published).  His writing, though, started privately much earlier and for over 50 years he kept a daily journal until his death in 1993.  Ultimately his journals totaled over 20,000 pages, some published in the 2003 book Every War Has Two Losers.  Stafford’s complete journal collection is maintained by Lewis & Clark College.

A frequent contributor to magazines and journals, Stafford composed some 22,000 poems with over 3,000 appearing in his 57 published books of poetry.  Stafford said he would love to be able to constantly look at life through a child’s eyes. 

 

 “Kids dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.”

A Writer's Moment: 'How lucky we were . . . and are'

A Writer's Moment: 'How lucky we were . . . and are': "It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like 'What about lunch...

'How lucky we were . . . and are'

"It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like 'What about lunch?'" – A.A. Milne

 

  Alan Alexander Milne, who gave us one of the most lovable and lasting figures in childrens’ literature – Winnie The Pooh -- was born in England in January of 1882.   His amazing success with “That Silly Old Bear” overshadowed his other writing, which was really quite amazing in its own right.    

 

During a 20-year period from about 1906 to 1925 he published 18 plays, 3 novels, and was a screenwriter for the early British cinema, including four films produced by up-and-coming actor Leslie Howard, who gained everlasting fame as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Wind.  Howard actually got his start acting in Milne’s play, Mr. Pim Passes By.

But Milne is most famous for his two Pooh books about a boy named Christopher Robin, named after his son Christopher Robin Milne, and Christopher’s menagerie of stuffed animals headed up by a teddy bear named Edward.  Both A.A. and Christopher loved a bear at the London Zoo named Winnie and a swan swimming there named Pooh.  So, instead of Edward, the bear got those combined names and the rest, as they say… 

  

A.A. Milne & son Christopher

Through Pooh, Milne gave us a conduit to many great terms, including  “Being a little eleven-o’clockish.”  It’s when you’re getting tired of the morning and wishing you had more energy, or something to eat – but it’s too late for a mid-morning pick-me-up and too early for lunch.  I’ve found it also works for describing other things, too, like feeling dragged out or unable to put any more effort into something. 

He also noted, "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."