A Writer's Moment: 'De-create and re-create'

A Writer's Moment: 'De-create and re-create':   “We participate in the creation of the world by de-creating ourselves.” – Anne Carson Born in Canada in June of ...

'De-create and re-create'

 

“We participate in the creation of the world by de-creating ourselves.” – Anne Carson

Born in Canada in June of 1950 Carson is a poet, essayist, translator and professor.  She has taught at universities across the U.S. and Canada, including McGill, Michigan and Princeton.   The author of more than 20 books, she is the recipient of three of the most distinguished and richest writing awards – the Guggenheim, the MacArthur, and the Lannan.  For Saturday’s Poem here is Carson’s,

 

      Short Talk on Chromo-Luminarism

 

            Sunlight slows down Europeans. Look at all those
            spellbound people in Seurat. Look at Monsieur,
            sitting deeply. Where does a European go when he
            is ‘lost in thought'? Seurat has painted that
            place—the old dazzler! It lies on the other
            side of attention, a long lazy boatride from here.
             It is A Sunday rather than A Saturday afternoon
            there. Seurat has made this clear by a special
            method. "Ma méthode," he called it, rather testily,
            when we asked him. He caught us hurrying through
            the chill green shadows like adulterers. The
            river was opening and closing its stone lips.
            The river was pressing Seurat to its lips.

A Writer's Moment: Taming those 'unruly' novels

A Writer's Moment: Taming those 'unruly' novels: “When language is treated beautifully and interestingly, it can feel good for the body: It's nourishing; it's re...

Taming those 'unruly' novels

“When language is treated beautifully and interestingly, it can feel good for the body: It's nourishing; it's rejuvenating.” – Aimee Bender

 

Born on this date in 1969, Bender is a novelist and short story writer who studied creative writing at the University of San Diego and California Irvine then went into simultaneous careers as a writer and teacher.  She teaches creative writing at the University of Southern California and was Director of the USC PhD in Creative Writing & Literature for several years. 

 

 Known for her stories about young people, Bender said, “I love to write about people in their 20s. It's such a fraught and exciting and kind of horrible time.”   The winner of two Pushcart Prizes, her novel An Invisible Sign of My Own, was named as a Los Angeles Times “Pick of the Year.”    Her collection of short stories, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, spent several months on both the New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller lists.  Her latest novel is 2020's The Butterfly Lampshade.

Despite the success of her novels, she said she prefers short stories.  “Novels are so much unrulier and more stressful to write. A short story can last two pages and then it's over, and that's kind of a relief.  But, I really like balancing the two.”

 

Bender said she enjoys writing.   “The human being's ability to make a metaphor to describe a human experience is just really cool.” 

A Writer's Moment: 'They must be felt with the heart'

A Writer's Moment: 'They must be felt with the heart':   “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Kel...

'They must be felt with the heart'

 

“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller
 

June 27th is Helen Keller Day, first proclaimed in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter in commemoration of the anniversary of her birth (in Alabama) on this date in 1880.  Author, political activist, and lecturer, she was the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree and a longtime writer, first being published at age 12. 

 

The story of how her teacher Anne Sullivan broke through Keller’s wall of silence and isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language and leading to Helen’s learning to communicate is depicted in the wonderful book, play and movie, The Miracle Worker.  Ultimately, Keller authored a dozen books, hundreds of essays and many stories, and inspired countless others with her writing and speaking skills. 

 

In 1964 Keller was a recipient of The Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Posthumously (she died in 1968) she was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame (in 1971) and was one of 12 inaugural inductees into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame (2015).

 

“When we do the best that we can,” she said, “we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.   I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad.   Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers.”  

A Writer's Moment: 'So, who wrote that story down?'

A Writer's Moment: 'So, who wrote that story down?':   “Armenian folklore has it that three apples fell from Heaven: one for the teller of a story, one for the listener, and the third for the ...

'So, who wrote that story down?'

 

“Armenian folklore has it that three apples fell from Heaven: one for the teller of a story, one for the listener, and the third for the one who 'took it to heart.' What a pity Heaven awarded no apple to the one who wrote the story down.” – Nancy Willard

Willard, born in Ann Arbor, MI, on this date in 1936 was a novelist, poet and both author/illustrator of children’s books.  She won the coveted Newbery Medal for her combination poetry-prose A Visit To William Blake’s Inn.

Growing up “surrounded by stories and storytellers,” she studied writing at the University of Michigan, where she earned both her B.A. and Ph.D.  (sandwiched around a Master’s degree from Stanford).   She started her career teaching writing at Vassar and then branched off to her writing, particularly children’s and young adult books, combining writing and teaching throughout her life.   

 

 Over the years she authored 4 novels, 4 nonfiction books, 18 books of poetry, and a remarkable 43 children’s books, the last one, Gum, published just months before her death in 2017.  

 

     Among her many awards besides the Newbery were an O.Henry Prize, 2 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowships, and a Devins Award for Poetry.

Always looking to write stories with a twist, she noted, “When I was growing up, I loved stories in which a girl sets out on a quest to rescue the prince instead of the other way around.”

A Writer's Moment: Projecting that 'What If?' factor

A Writer's Moment: Projecting that 'What If?' factor:   “I loved to read, and if I could've been a professional reader, that's probably what I would've wanted to b...

Projecting that 'What If?' factor

 

“I loved to read, and if I could've been a professional reader, that's probably what I would've wanted to be!“ – Kathryn Lasky

 

Perhaps best-known for her “Diaries” tales – where she builds a story around the diary of her protagonist – Lasky was born in Indiana on this date in 1944 and now makes her home in Massachusetts.  She is the recipient of numerous writing honors. including the Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature and a Newbery Prize.  Her writing, she said, is often triggered by both current events and a “What if?” mentality.   The author of over one hundred books, her most notable series is Guardians of Ga’Hoole.

  

“When I was growing up I loved reading historical fiction, but too often it was about males; or, if it was about females, they were girls who were going to grow up to be famous like Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, or Harriet Tubman. No one ever wrote about plain, normal, everyday girls. I always wondered what it was like to be just a normal kid growing up in trying times or during a great moment in history.”  That "What If?" factor, if you will.

 

“Whether you are a 12-year-old princess or a 12-year-old regular kid, you need to know you are loved and respected.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Plausible stuff; transformative words'

A Writer's Moment: 'Plausible stuff; transformative words': “Some very plausible stuff is being written by women in a way that most men are not doing.” –   Amy Clampitt Born J...

'Plausible stuff; transformative words'

“Some very plausible stuff is being written by women in a way that most men are not doing.” –  Amy Clampitt

Born June 15, 1920 Clampitt was a reference librarian at the Audubon Society when her first poem was published (by The New Yorker) in 1978.  In 1983, she published her first full-length collection, The Kingfisher.  Until her death from cancer in 1994, Clampitt published five books of poetry, including the award-winning What the Light Was Like.

 

So transformative was her work that she was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Grant in 1992 while working on what would become her final book, A Silence Opens.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Clampitt’s,  

 

           Beach Glass 

 

While you walk the water's edge,
turning over concepts
I can't envision, the honking buoy
serves notice that at any time
the wind may change,
the reef-bell clatters
its treble monotone, deaf as Cassandra
to any note but warning. The ocean,
cumbered by no business more urgent
than keeping open old accounts
that never balanced,
goes on shuffling its millenniums
of quartz, granite, and basalt.

It behaves
toward the permutations of novelty—
driftwood and shipwreck, last night's
beer cans, spilt oil, the coughed-up
residue of plastic—with random
impartiality, playing catch or tag
or touch-last like a terrier,
turning the same thing over and over,
over and over. For the ocean, nothing
is beneath consideration.

The houses
of so many mussels and periwinkles
have been abandoned here, it's hopeless
to know which to salvage. Instead
I keep a lookout for beach glass—
amber of Budweiser, chrysoprase
of Almadén and Gallo, lapis
by way of (no getting around it,
I'm afraid) Phillips'
Milk of Magnesia, with now and then a rare
translucent turquoise or blurred amethyst
of no known origin.

The process
goes on forever: they came from sand,
they go back to gravel,
along with treasuries
of Murano, the buttressed
astonishments of Chartres,
which even now are readying
for being turned over and over as gravely
and gradually as an intellect
engaged in the hazardous
redefinition of structures
no one has yet looked at.

A Writer's Moment: 'What writing suspense - and success - is all about'

A Writer's Moment: 'What writing suspense - and success - is all about':   I often will write a scene from three different points of view to find out which has the most tension and which way I’m...

'What writing suspense - and success - is all about'

 

I often will write a scene from three different points of view to find out which has the most tension and which way I’m able to conceal the information I’m trying to conceal.  And that is, at the end of the day, what writing suspense is all about.”– Dan Brown

 

Born on June 22, 1964 Brown has utilized the technique to perfection.  His thrillers exude suspense and his readers flock to them and have since his first success (The Da Vinci Code) in 2003.  Brown's novels are treasure hunts set in a 24-hour period, featuring recurring themes of cryptography, keys, symbols, codes and conspiracy theories.  

 

While writing is his life today it wasn’t that way until the mid-1990s.  Until then he was a singer, songwriter and pianist in Hollywood, where he also taught music at the prestigious Beverly Hills Preparatory School.  Brown grew up with classical music and still is a composer.  His highly regarded Wild Symphony features 21 individual orchestral movements representing the funny or interesting sides of various animals’ personalities.  "My engagement with music has never waned," he told one interviewer. "I still play piano and compose nearly every day."

 

Another writing technique Brown likes is using real people in his life as key characters, answering the old familiar question many writers get: “Where do you get your characters?” 

 

Characters aside, Brown’s secret to writing success is simple:  “Hard work.  I still get up every morning at 4 a.m.  I write seven days a week, including Christmas.  I still face a blank page every morning, and my characters don’t really care how many books I’ve sold.”

A Writer's Moment: 'You collaborate with your readers'

A Writer's Moment: 'You collaborate with your readers':   “I love the fact that you collaborate with your readers when you write a book.” – Robert Crais Born in Louisiana on...

'You collaborate with your readers'

 

“I love the fact that you collaborate with your readers when you write a book.” – Robert Crais

Born in Louisiana on this date in 1953, Crais is one of America’s best-selling crime fiction authors.  But he didn’t start writing his novels until long after he had made a name for himself as a script writer for such television shows as Hill Street Blues and Cagney and Lacey. 

 

It was in the late 1980s before he tested the bookwriting waters.  His first novel, The Monkey’s Raincoat, was an instant hit and earned every award from “Best First Novel” to “Best Mystery.”  Since then he’s had 22 other bestsellers.  Among his many awards are the Ross Macdonald Literary Award for crime fiction and being named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. 

 

 In 2020 his novel Suspect was named Best Mystery/Crime Novel of the Decade by the Barry Awards.  Perhaps his best-known novel, also made into a movie, is Hostage, often cited for its great character development.

               

“My books come to me in images,” he said about his inspiration.  “Sometimes the image is at the beginning of the book, and sometimes it's simply a flash somewhere in the middle.   

 

 “I write characters and stories that move me,” he said, “and I write from the heart.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Leaping tall buildings'

A Writer's Moment: 'Leaping tall buildings':   “Take something you love, tell people about it, bring together people who share your love, and help make it better. Ult...

'Leaping tall buildings'

 

“Take something you love, tell people about it, bring together people who share your love, and help make it better. Ultimately, you'll have more of whatever you love for yourself, and for the world.” – Julius Schwartz

 

Perhaps few people even know Schwartz’s name, but he left readers with a lasting legacy by helping develop some of our most iconic comic book “superheroes.”  Schwartz also came up with the concept (and title) of the Justice League of America.

 

Born on this date in 1915, Schwartz (who died in 2004) was DC Comics’ primary editor in the development of the publisher's flagship superheroes Superman and Batman.  Also a literary agent, he co-founded the Solar Sales Service Literary Agency, where he represented such writers as Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury and H. P. Lovecraft, placing some of Bradbury's first published works and Lovecraft's last.  

 

And, he is credited with helping organize the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939.  The organization, which is now known as WorldCon, presents the annual Hugo Awards for best science fiction and fantasy.    

 

Schwartz is one of just a few editors to be inducted into both the Comic Industry’s Jack Kirby Hall of Fame and the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, something he found almost unbelievable.   

 

 “Not too many people,” he said,  “ever know who the editor is.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Witness to history; opportunity to live it'

A Writer's Moment: 'Witness to history; opportunity to live it':   “Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.” –   John Hers...

'Witness to history; opportunity to live it'

 

“Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.” –  John Hersey

Born in China (to missionary parents) on June 17, 1914 Hersey is perhaps best known for his bio-novel A Bell for Adano, and for his feature story "Hiroshima" about the aftermath of the first atomic bomb.  In the span of two years he won the Pulitzer Prize for Bell, and waves of accolades for “Hiroshima,” later judged “the finest piece of American journalism of the 20th century” by a 36-member panel associated with New York University’s journalism department.

 

Adano is the story of an Italian-American military officer who wins the respect and admiration of the people of Adano, Sicily, by helping them find a replacement for the town bell that the Fascists had melted down for rifle barrels.   The tale grew directly out of his own WWII experiences.

 

That book was the third of 27 that Hersey wrote, including a terrific book based on his parents’ and their contemporaries’ missionary experience titled The Call.   Hersey also had a long journalistic career led by “Hiroshima.”   Written in August, 1946 the 31,000-word article was published by The New Yorker and told from the viewpoint of 6 survivors.  The story occupied almost the entire issue – something The New Yorker had never done before, nor has since. 

 

Shortly before his 1993 death, Yale (his alma mater) honored Hersey by creating an annual lecture series in his name.  In dedicating the series, fellow Yale alum and author, David McCullough said, “Hersey portrayed our time with a breadth and artistry matched by very few. He has given us the century in a great shelf of brilliant work, and we are all his beneficiaries."

A Writer's Moment: Sharing the possibilities that storytelling embraces

A Writer's Moment: Sharing the possibilities that storytelling embraces: "Storytelling makes possible redemptions and healings that can't happen in any other way." – Stephen Donaldson Donaldson ,...

Sharing the possibilities that storytelling embraces

"Storytelling makes possible redemptions and healings that can't happen in any other way." – Stephen Donaldson

Donaldson, born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1947 may be American but he is mostly “other-worldly” in his writing.  Over his lifetime he's written a wide range of fantasy and science fiction novels that have cemented his position as a leading writer in the genre’, knocking around in alternative universes like he successfully does in his 10-volume The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

Characterized by psychological complexity, conceptual abstractness, moral bleakness, and the use of an arcane vocabulary, his writing has attracted critical praise for its "imagination, vivid characterizations, and fast pace."   I think he also should get high marks for his titles (one I especially enjoyed is The Rune of Earth).

A graduate of The College of Wooster and Kent State (both in Ohio), he currently makes his home in New Mexico.

 

“I may not be as old as dirt," Donaldson said, "but dirt and I have an awful lot in common.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The poet's job is to render the world'

A Writer's Moment: 'The poet's job is to render the world':   “The job of the poet is to render the world - to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever ta...

'The poet's job is to render the world'

 

“The job of the poet is to render the world - to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do.” – Mark Van Doren

I wrote earlier this week about Van Doren, who won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for his book Collected Poems 1922–1938.     The author of numerous short stories, novels, and plays, Van Doren was above all a poet and a teacher. As Thomas Merton said in a letter to Van Doren, "You always used your gifts to make people admire and understand poetry and good writing and truth."   For Saturday’s Poem, here is Van Doren’s,
 

                                          Spring Thunder

 

Listen, The wind is still,
And far away in the night --
See! The uplands fill
With a running light.

Open the doors. It is warm;
And where the sky was clear--
Look! The head of a storm
That marches here!

Come under the trembling hedge--
Fast, although you fumble...
There! Did you hear the edge
of winter crumble?

A Writer's Moment: 'Write what you see; what you hear'

A Writer's Moment: 'Write what you see; what you hear':   “I simply write what I find to be the way people are. . . I just let my characters go, the way I let life go.” – Caro...

'Write what you see; what you hear'

 

“I simply write what I find to be the way people are. . . I just let my characters go, the way I let life go.” – Carolyn Chute 

 

Born in Maine on this date in 1947, Chute is an award-winning writer (both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Thornton Wilder Award) who writes by hand, lives off the grid (no electricity or running water in her home), and raises much of her own food.

  

 She started writing as a part-time newspaper correspondent, then taught creative writing while finishing her first novel The Beans of Egypt, Maine, also made into a well-received movie.

 

Now the author of half-dozen books and numerous short stories, she is a frequent speaker about class issues in America, strongly identified with the culture of poor, rural western Maine although her works speak to other similar regions in the U.S.  

  

Write what you see and hear, Chute says.   “All I want to do is explore. I want to see what people would do.  I say, 'What would this person do in this situation?' and I write it down.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The art of assisting discovery'

A Writer's Moment: 'The art of assisting discovery':   “ The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” –   Mark Van Doren   Born in Illinois on this date in 1894, Van Doren was ...

'The art of assisting discovery'

 

“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” –  Mark Van Doren

 

Born in Illinois on this date in 1894, Van Doren was a poet, creative and nonfiction writer, critic, scholar and English professor (at Columbia University for nearly 40 years).  As a teacher he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers, including Thomas Merton, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.

 

 And, Van Doren was literary editor and film critic for The Nation, the oldest continuously published literary magazine in the U.S.   His influence and body of work were recognized by The Library of Congress when he was made a Fellow in American Letters and then elected President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  

Van Doren wrote many of the books studied by up-and-coming writers in colleges and universities across the nation, produced the award-winning verse play The Last Days of Lincoln, and won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his Collected Works 1922-1938, joining older brother Carl as one of the few sibling combinations to win the award (Carl won in 1939).  

Despite his many successes in other genres, he considered himself a poet first.   

 

“The job of the poet," he said, "is to render the world - to see it and report it without loss, without perversion.   No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The characters come to life within you'

A Writer's Moment: 'The characters come to life within you':   “The interesting thing about fiction from a writer's standpoint is that the characters come to life within you. And...

'The characters come to life within you'

 

“The interesting thing about fiction from a writer's standpoint is that the characters come to life within you. And yet who are they and where are they? They seem to have as much or more vitality and complexity as the people around you.” – Whitley Strieber

 

Born in San Antonio, TX, on June 13, 1945 Strieber has split his writing talents between horror stories, science fiction, and speculative fiction with a social conscience – interrupted (both literally and figuratively) by his nonfiction account of being abducted by “non-human visitors.”   That particular book, Communion, while pooh-poohed as “improbable if not impossible,” was a huge bestseller and a subsequent successful big screen adaptation. 

 

Two of his other books, The Wolfen and The Hunger, also were made into successful films.  Still going strong as he turns 79, these days Strieber writes for the SyFy Channel, does non-fiction books, and produces a podcast “Dreamland.”  His latest book is 2023’s Them.

  

"Everything ultimately comes down to the relationship between the reader and the writer and the characters,” Strieber said.   “Does or does not a character address moral being in a universal and important way? If it does, then it's literature.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Most of what we call life'

A Writer's Moment: 'Most of what we call life':   “A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call l...

'Most of what we call life'

 

“A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.” – Saul Bellow

Born in Canada on this date in 1915, Bellow later became a naturalized U.S. citizen after attending the University of Chicago and Northwestern where he earned degrees in sociology and anthropology.  The fact that he was an anthropologist probably is not a surprise for his readers who find anthropological references sprinkled throughout his award-winning books.  

 

Best known for The Adventures of Augie March; Herzog; and Humboldt’s Gift, Bellow earned every major writing award including the Nobel Prize.  He won the National Book Award for Fiction 3 times (the only writer ever to do so); a Lifetime Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters; the National Medal of Arts; and 2 Pulitzer Prizes.

 

"The backbone of 20th-century American literature has been provided by two novelists,” fellow novelist Philip Roth said.  “They are William Faulkner and Saul Bellow. Together they are the Melville, Hawthorne, and Twain of the 20th Century."  Bellow died in 2005. 

 

“You know, you never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write down,” Bellow said.  “Maybe that's why they’re called dreams."