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A Writer's Moment: 'Property of the imagination' : “The English language is nobody's special property. ...
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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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“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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“I never write to disappear and escape. The truth is exactly the opposite. Most people strike me as escaping and disapp...
Thursday, February 29, 2024
A Writer's Moment: 'Simply the best way to experience a story'
'Simply the best way to experience a story'
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
A Writer's Moment: Filling each blank page
Filling each blank page
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
A Writer's Moment: 'Knocking loud enough and long enough to be heard'
'Knocking loud enough and long enough to be heard'
Monday, February 26, 2024
A Writer's Moment: Breathing life into pages from her Journals
Breathing life into pages from her Journals
“It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.” – Elizabeth George
Susan “Elizabeth” George, born in Ohio on this date in 1949, writes about “ordinary and extraordinary” days in the life of British Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley utilizing a technique called “journaling” as the foundation for her work.
“I’ve always liked creating a journal. It’s like the way I clear my throat,” she said. “I write a page every day, maybe 500 words (that’s two pages double-spaced). It could be about something I’m specifically worried about in a new novel; it could be a question I want answered; it could be something that’s going on in my personal life. I just use it as an exercise.”
George holds two degrees - one in teaching and one in counseling/psychology - as well as an honorary doctorate in humane letters, presented to her after she became a worldwide celebrity from her books about Detective Lynley.
Twice named Teacher of the Year in California’s largest county, she started taking bits and pieces from her journals, including from travels to England, to begin her writing. She's now published 28 books – 21 in the “Lynley” series, which also has adapted for the BBC’s The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
For George, each story itself becomes a character. “If you don't understand that story is character and not just idea,” she said, “you will not be able to breathe life into even the most intriguing flash of inspiration.”
Saturday, February 24, 2024
A Writer's Moment: Flushing great works into the world
Flushing great works into the world
“One reason to write a poem is to flush from the deep thickets of the self some thought, feeling, comprehension, question, music, you didn't know was in you, or in the world.” – Jane Hirshfield
Born in New York on this date in
1953, Hirschfield has authored countless essays and numerous award-winning books of poetry –
including 2001's Given Sugar, Given Salt; 2006's After; and 2023’s The Asking: New & Selected Poems. Her works have been published worldwide in 15 languages.
For Saturday’s Poem, here is Hirshfield’s,
A Person Protests to Fate
A
person protests to fate:
"The things you have caused
me most to want
are those that furthest elude me."
Fate nods.
Fate is sympathetic.
To tie the shoes, button a shirt,
are triumphs
for only the very young,
the very old.
During the long middle:
conjugating a rivet
mastering tango
training the cat to stay off the table
preserving a single moment longer than this one
continuing to wake whatever has happened the day before
and the penmanships love practices inside the body.
Friday, February 23, 2024
A Writer's Moment: 'You can't go wrong if it's real'
'You can't go wrong if it's real'
“If we judge others it is because we are judging something in ourselves of which we are unaware.” – John Camp
Novelist and journalist Camp, who writes as author John Sandford, was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on this date in 1944. I first met him in 1985 when he was writing feature stories for the St. Paul Pioneer Press & Dispatch. As a feature writer myself, I admired Camp’s craftsmanship and style.
At the time of our meeting in the Pioneer Press newsroom, Camp was writing a series about the life and struggles of a farm family in southwestern Minnesota – not far from where I had lived as a child on a nearby South Dakota farm. We had a pleasant talk and I asked him what he might be doing next. “I want to write books,” he said. “I like newspapers, but I think I’ve got a book or two in me.” That next spring, he won the Pulitzer Prize for that farm series so I was positive he would stay in journalism.
But Camp followed his dream and started writing thriller/suspense/crime novels about a loner detective (Lucas Davenport) who goes against the grain to solve crimes, written with the same realism Camp put into his feature writing. This year Camp/Sandford is releasing his 58th novel, Toxic Prey, and still going strong, although it’s sad the journalism world lost his gifted voice.
“Write it as you see it. Just go outside and look at something and write it down and you’ll find it’s a very nice piece of writing. You can’t go wrong if it’s real.”
Thursday, February 22, 2024
A Writer's Moment: 'Steadily and smoothly'
'Steadily and smoothly'
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
A Writer's Moment: 'Finding stories in History's margins'
'Finding stories in History's margins'
“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
Born in Scotland on Feb. 22, 1956 Kerr (who died in 2018) earned accolades for his “Bernie Gunther” historical thrillers primarily set in Germany during the 1930s, World War II and the Cold War. He authored more than 30 books of fiction, several nonfiction works and a dozen children's books, including the Children of the Lamp series under the name P.B. Kerr.
Kerr started writing in middle school and in his lifetime was honored for his creative work by a number of British writing groups and organizations. He also was a frequent contributor of essays to The Sunday Times and The Evening Standard, although his forte’ was historical fiction.
Kerr said his best advice to historical fiction writers was to "immerse yourselves in the time period" about which you are writing.
“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,” he said. “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.”
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
A Writer's Moment: Passion + History equals Success
Passion + History equals Success
“You
have to have heart's passion to write a novel.”
– Alan Furst
Born in New York City on this date in 1941, Furst is noted for spy novels set just prior to World War II, an era and genre’ he first explored in the late 1980s after taking a trip along the Danube. Before becoming a full-time novelist, he studied English at Oberlin College, worked in advertising and wrote articles for both magazines and newspapers, including the prestigious International Herald Tribune in Paris.
Furst, who arguably can lay claim to the title “Inventor of the Historical Spy Novel,” has especially been lauded for his successful evocations of Eastern European peoples and places during the tumultuous era of 1933-1942. While all of his historical espionage novels are loosely connected, only his mega-bestsellers The World at Night and Red Gold share a common plot.
Monday, February 19, 2024
A Writer's Moment: 'Reflecting life as you see it'
'Reflecting life as you see it'
Saturday, February 17, 2024
A Writer's Moment: 'Feeling experience and pressing it further'
'Feeling experience and pressing it further'
“One
reason to write a poem is to flush from the deep thickets of the self some
thought, feeling, comprehension, question, music, you didn't know was in you,
or in the world.” Jane Hirshfield
Poet and essayist Hirshfield, born in New York in February of 1953, is the author of 10 poetry collections, including this past year’s The Asking: New and Selected Poems. Each has earned numerous awards as has her highly regarded book of essays about poetry, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry.
“My job as a human being as well as a writer is to feel as thoroughly as possible the experience that I am part of, and then press it a little further,” she said. For Saturday’s poem here is Hirshfield’s,
Changing
Everything
I was walking again
in the woods,
a yellow light
was sifting all I saw.
Willfully,
with a cold heart,
I took a stick,
lifted it to the opposite side
of the path.
There, I said to myself,
that's done now.
Brushing one hand against the other,
to clean them
of the tiny fragments of bark.
Friday, February 16, 2024
A Writer's Moment: 'Always about the most important things'
'Always about the most important things'
“Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.” – Richard Ford
A novelist, short story writer and award-winning editor, Ford is perhaps best-known for his novels The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day (winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and The PEN/Faulkner Award), The Lay of the Land and Let Me Be Frank with You, also a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
A native Mississippian born on this date in 1944, Ford also wrote the terrific short story collection Rock Springs, which has been widely anthologized. A story collection mostly set in Montana, it includes some of his most popular stories and cemented his reputation as one of the finest writers of the last 50 years.
Ford struggled with dyslexia in his growing up years and didn’t get seriously interested in even reading literature until his college days at Michigan State. He has stated in interviews that his dyslexia may, however, have helped him as a reader and writer forcing him to read and write at a slow and thoughtful pace.
Like many great writers, Ford states the best way to be a great writer is to write about what you know best. “Happiness for me,” he said, “is getting to write about the most important things I know.”
Thursday, February 15, 2024
A Writer's Moment: 'Like a very complex game'
'Like a very complex game'
"In a crazy way, writing is a lot like any kind of very complex game - like chess, where you have the knowledge as you're composing all of the ramifications of each move, of each choice you make." – Adam Ross
Born in New York City this date in 1967, Ross is a novelist, short story writer and magazine editor whose novel Mr. Peanut was named both a New York Times Notable Book and one of the best books of 2010 by The New Yorker, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New Republic, and The Economist. An intricate murder mystery, the book has been translated into 16 languages.
A gifted athlete who won a high school state wrtestling championship, Ross also grew up interested in acting and appeared in several movies and numerous television commercials. He is working on a semi-autobiographical novel on those youth acting experiencs.
Now the editor of the historic literary magazine The Sewanee Review (since 2016), he and his family live in Nashville, where his writing includes frequent contributions to such newspapers and magazines as The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast and The Nashville Scene. His short stories have appeared in The Carolina Quarterly.
“I think that if you have a knack for storytelling, and you work really hard at
it, you'll have a chance to tap into something deep,” he said. “But the fact remains that good sentences
are hard won. Any writer worth a lick knows constructing a sentence, a
paragraph, or a chapter is hard work.”
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
A Writer's Moment: 'A smile is the beginning of love'
'A smile is the beginning of love'
"Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love."— Mother Teresa
There are varying opinions as to the origin of Valentine's Day, but some experts believe it originated from a Roman martyred as St. Valentine who refused to give up Christianity and died for his faith on February 14, 269 AD. Legend also says Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer's daughter, who had become his friend, signed, "From Your Valentine.”
The date of his death was just a day before the feast of Lupercalia, celebrated on February 15 to honor the god Lupercus, protector of people and their herds from wolves. Dances were held for all the single young men and women as part of this Lupercalian feast and as a sort-of “spin the bottle” variation, a man would draw his dance partner's name from a piece of papyrus placed in a bowl.
The man not only danced with that partner but was obligated to protect her throughout the next year. In many cases, the partners became sweethearts and were soon married. Gradually, St. Valentine became the patron saint of lovers and the Lupercalian celebration also shifted to February 14 – the two combined into a day marked by sending poems and gifts like flowers.
And as card companies and poets both know it not only became a day for showing love, but also one of the great days for creating “writers’ moments.” Happy Valentine’s Day!
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
A Writer's Moment: Putting his audience focus first
Putting his audience focus first
Monday, February 12, 2024
A Writer's Moment: Why writers write
Why writers write