A Writer's Moment: Cold Moon on the rise

A Writer's Moment: Cold Moon on the rise: Today, I heard a story on the radio that said December’s “Cold Moon” was coming, signaling winter’s arrival.  The story reminded me of May S...

Cold Moon on the rise

Today, I heard a story on the radio that said December’s “Cold Moon” was coming, signaling winter’s arrival.  The story reminded me of May Sarton’s poem “December Moon.”  Sarton was born Elinore Marie Sarton in Belgium in 1912.  She and her family moved to England at the outset of WWI and then on to Boston in 1915.  She not only became a deeply engrained New Englander but also one of America’s greatest and most prolific poets, writing as “May,” the month of her birth.

 

So, on this Black Friday weekend as we leave Thanksgiving and autumn behind, spiraling toward our first “winter month,” here Sarton’s poem,

 

December Moon

Before going to bed
After a fall of snow
I look out on the field
Shining there in the moonlight
So calm, untouched and white
Snow silence fills my head
After I leave the window.

Hours later near dawn
When I look down again
The whole landscape has changed
The perfect surface gone
Criss-crossed and written on
Where the wild creatures ranged
While the moon rose and shone.

Why did my dog not bark?
Why did I hear no sound
There on the snow-locked ground
In the tumultuous dark?

How much can come, how much can go
When the December moon is bright,
What worlds of play we'll never know
Sleeping away the cold white night
After a fall of snow.

A Writer's Moment: 'Never hope more than you work'

A Writer's Moment: 'Never hope more than you work':   “Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion...

'Never hope more than you work'

 

“Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television.” – Rita Mae Brown

 

Born in Pennsylvania on Nov. 28, 1944 Brown is a writer, activist, and feminist who first earned acclaim for her novel Rubyfruit Jungle.  She’s been on many bestseller lists for her two long series’ of mystery novels, the “Mrs. Murphy” and “Sister Jane” series.  Her most recent books are 2023’s Lost and Hound in “Sister Jane” and 2024’s Feline Fatale in the “Mrs. Murphy” series.

 

Over the years Brown has interspersed her more than 50 books of mystery and suspense with 10 screenplays, several books of poetry, 4 nonfiction pieces, and 10 screenplays, two of which earned her   Emmy nominations.  Her I Love Liberty story and screenplay got both an Emmy nod and a Writer’s Guild of America Award.  

 

“Creativity comes from trust,” Brown said.  “Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Continue dreaming and believe in dreams'

A Writer's Moment: 'Continue dreaming and believe in dreams':   “We have to think big. We have to imagine big, and that's part of the problem. We're letting other people imagine and lead us down...

'Continue dreaming and believe in dreams'

 

“We have to think big. We have to imagine big, and that's part of the problem. We're letting other people imagine and lead us down what paths they want to take us. Sometimes they're very limited in the way their ideas are constructed. We need to imagine much more broadly. That's the work of a writer, and more writers should look at it.” –  Alexis Wright

Born in Australia on Nov. 25, 1950 Wright is an Indigenous writer and land rights champion for the native Australian people. 

 

An award nominee for many of her writings, she has published both fiction and nonfiction and is a noted essayist as well as novelist.  Her major nonfiction books are Take Power, an anthology on the history of the land rights movement, and Grog War on the introduction of alcohol restrictions in her native Tennant Creek area. 

 

But it is her fiction that has earned her top accolades. Her 2006 book Carpentaria, based on the interconnected stories of several inhabitants of the fictional town of Desperance on Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria, won both the Miles Franklin Award (Austrailia’s premiere writing prize) and the Stella Prize, an annual award recognizing the best book by a female writer in any genre.

 

This year, she repeated both honors for her 2023 novel Praiseworthy, a dystopian tale set in a fictional northern Australian community.  She is the first Australian author to win both awards twice.   

 

 “My role as a novelist is to explore ideas and imagination,” Wright said.  “Hopefully that will inspire people from my world to continue dreaming and to believe in dreams.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Everyday life's inspiring moments'

A Writer's Moment: 'Everyday life's inspiring moments':   “(I) . . . see something in everyday life that inspires me. And . . . Everyday life is where I get my inspiration.”  – Kevin Henkes Born...

'Everyday life's inspiring moments'

 

“(I) . . . see something in everyday life that inspires me. And . . . Everyday life is where I get my inspiration.” – Kevin Henkes

Born in Wisconsin , in November, 1960 Henkes is a leading light in the Children’s Book world.  He has won numerous awards, including both a Caldecott Honor Book Award and a Geisel Honor Book Award for his book Waiting, only the second time in publishing history that an author won both awards for the same book.

As an illustrator, Henkes earlier won the Caldecott Medal for Kitten's First Full Moon and a Caldecott Honor for Owen.  For his writing he earned Newbery Medal Honor Book Awards for both Olive's Ocean and The Year of Billy Miller.   All told, he has authored and (mostly) illustrated more than 50 bestselling books.

 And in 2020, he won the Children’s Literature Legacy Award honoring a U.S. author or illustrator whose books have made a "significant and lasting contribution to literature for children." 

“I like examining the ordinary,” Henkes said, “and by doing so, one hopefully reveals the extraordinary nature within.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Out of which miracles leap'

A Writer's Moment: 'Out of which miracles leap':   “ A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning. ” –      James Dickey                  Born in Atla...

'Out of which miracles leap'

 

“A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning.” –    James Dickey

             Born in Atlanta in 1923, Dickey was a U.S. Poet Laureate and multiple award winner for a wide range of his works.  Despite his success as a poet, he might be best known for his taut novel Deliverance, also a successful movie.  Dickey’s first book of poems – Into the Stone and Other Poems – was published in 1960.  His second, Buckdancer's Choice, earned him a National Book Award for Poetry.  

            All 331 of his poems can be found in The Complete Poems of James Dickey.   For Saturday’s Poem, here is Dickey’s,

                                         At Darien Bridge

                                   The sea here used to look
                                   As if many convicts had built it,

                                   Standing deep in their ankle chains,
                                   Ankle-deep in the water, to smite

                                   The land and break it down to salt.
                                   I was in this bog as a child

                                   When they were all working all day
                                   To drive the pilings down.

                                   I thought I saw the still sun
                                   Strike the side of a hammer in flight

                                   And from it a sea bird be born
                                   To take off over the marshes.

                                   As the gray climbs the side of my head
                                   And cuts my brain off from the world,

                                   I walk and wish mainly for birds,
                                   For the one bird no one has looked for

                                   To spring again from a flash
                                   Of metal, perhaps from the scratched

                                   Wedding band on my ring finger.
                                   Recalling the chains of their feet,

                                    I stand and look out over grasses
                                   At the bridge they built, long abandoned,

                                   Breaking down into water at last,
                                   And long, like them, for freedom

                                   Or death, or to believe again
                                   That they worked on the ocean to give it

                                   The unchanging, hopeless look
                                   Out of which all miracles leap.

 

A Writer's Moment: 'The important work of moving the world forward'

A Writer's Moment: 'The important work of moving the world forward':   “It’s never too late to be who you might have been.”  – George Eliot    Born in England on this date in 1819, Mary Ann Evans realized ...

'The important work of moving the world forward'

 “It’s never too late to be who you might have been.” – George Eliot

 

 Born in England on this date in 1819, Mary Ann Evans realized early in her career that if she was going to be taken seriously as a novelist she needed to change her identity.   While women did write under their own names during her lifetime, she said she used a male pen name to escape the stereotype of women only writing lighthearted romances. She also wished to have her fiction judged separately from her already extensive and widely known work as an editor and critic. 

 

 So, she became George Eliot, regarded as one of the best novelists of the 19^th Century, authoring such classics as Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner – known for their realism and psychological insights.   Self-taught, she was the first female writer for The Westminster Review, starting in 1850 and becoming assistant editor in 1851.   By the time she started writing novels she was pretty much running the magazine, contributing many essays and reviews, something she continued even after her success with creative fiction.

 

“The important work of moving the world forward," she said, "does not have to wait to be done by perfect men.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A treasure house of self-knowledge'

A Writer's Moment: 'A treasure house of self-knowledge':   “One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the mome...

'A treasure house of self-knowledge'

 

“One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.” – Marilyn French

 

Born in Brooklyn on this date in 1929, French began her writing career in journalism while still in college, although she hoped to become a musician and composer.   After marrying and having two children, she went into teaching for several years, earned both her Master’s and Doctorate degrees in English, and returned to writing.  While she was an essayist and sometime short story writer, her biggest impact came through her novels.

  

French's first and best-known novel, The Women's Room, follows the details and lives of Mira and her friends in 1950s’ and 1960s’ America during the dawning and subsequent impact of militant radical feminism.  The 1977 novel sold over 20 million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 20 languages.      

 

 Shortly before her death in 2009, she was asked what advice she might give beginning writers, and she said to capitalize on things that might seem to get in your way, such as fear of failure.  

 

“Fear is a question,” she said.  “What are you afraid of and why? Our fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if only we explore them.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Ink into words and pictures'

A Writer's Moment: 'Ink into words and pictures':   “A newspaper is lumber made malleable. It is ink made into words and pictures. It is conceived, born, grows up and dies of old age in a da...

'Ink into words and pictures'

 “A newspaper is lumber made malleable. It is ink made into words and pictures. It is conceived, born, grows up and dies of old age in a day.” – Jim Bishop

 

Born in Jersey City, NJ, on this date in 1907, Bishop dropped out of school after 8th grade, then studied typing and shorthand on his own in hopes of becoming a journalist.  In 1929, he was hired as a copy boy at the New York Daily News, the start of a 50-year career writing for newspapers and magazines. 

 

When not writing journalistically, Bishop began working on biographies and ultimately published half-a-dozen including the bestselling The Day Lincoln Was Shot, a book that took him 24 years to complete but ultimately sold over 3 million copies.  The book has been re-published in two dozen languages and made into two television specials and a feature-length movie.

 

Bishop also was a syndicated political columnist, book reviewer and critic, although the latter role concerned him, noting,  “A good writer is not, per se’, a good book critic, no more than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender."

A Writer's Moment: 'The Writer's Art of Observation'

A Writer's Moment: 'The Writer's Art of Observation':   “Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die when you’re right in the middle of it.” –  P.J. O'Rourke. Born in Toledo,...

'The Writer's Art of Observation'

 

“Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die when you’re right in the middle of it.” – P.J. O'Rourke.

Born in Toledo, OH on Nov. 14, 1947 Patrick Jake O'Rourke was a conservative political satirist, journalist, creative writer and regular on the hit NPR show "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me” until his death from cancer in 2022.

O’Rourke authored 23 books, including the mega-bestseller None of My Business: P.J. Explains Money, Banking, Debt, Equity, Assets, Liabilities, and Why He's Not Rich and Neither Are You.   He also co-wrote National Lampoon’s 1964 High School Yearbook with Douglas Kenney, the book that inspired the movie Animal House.

O’Rourke said judging who and what people are all about is easy to determine through the writer's art of observation. 

“People will tell you anything,” O’Rourke said, “but what they do is always the truth.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Nothing is more important'

A Writer's Moment: 'Nothing is more important':  

'Nothing is more important'

 

Creating terse, imagistic poems

 

“Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.” – Charles Simic  

Simic, born in Belgrade in 1938, won a Pulitzer Prize in poetry for The World Doesn’t End and writing with a style called literary minimalism, creating terse, imagistic poems. Critics have referred to Simic poems as "tightly constructed Chinese puzzle boxes."

Displaced by World War II and eventually emigrating to the U.S., Simic didn’t speak English until he was 15, but once he learned the language he became one of our most prolific writers, producing some 60 books, the last being No Land In Sight: Poems, published in 2022.   Named U.S. Poet Laureate and winner of the Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement, he died in 2023.    For Saturday’s Poem here is Simic’s,

                                                 The Wooden Toy

     The wooden toy sitting pretty.

   No … quieter than that.

      Like the sound of eyebrows

      Raised by a villain 

      In a silent movie.

    Psst, someone said behind my back.

A Writer's Moment: Creating terse, imagistic poems

A Writer's Moment: Creating terse, imagistic poems:   “ Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them. ” – Charles Simic   Simic, born in Belgrade in...

A Writer's Moment: 'The driver of great stories'

A Writer's Moment: 'The driver of great stories':   “When you're a writer, you're always looking for conflict. It's conflict that drives great stories.”  – William Kent Krueger ...

'The driver of great stories'

 

“When you're a writer, you're always looking for conflict. It's conflict that drives great stories.” – William Kent Krueger

 

Born in Torrington, WY on Nov. 16, 1950, Krueger grew up in the Cascade Mountains and many of his books – especially the Cork O’Connor series – have an “Old West” feel even though he’s made his home in St. Paul, MN for decades and sets his books in Northern Minnesota.

 

I first met Krueger in the early 2000s when I was teaching and doing public relations at Augsburg University in Minneapolis and he would stop over to visit with English classes there.  After hearing the “back story” on his own writing career as well as how he created O’Connor and the cast of characters that surround him, I was hooked on his writing.   I have long been amazed that Krueger doesn’t have any Ojibwe blood, since he does a remarkable job of incorporating great detail about Ojibwe culture into his stories. 

 

With each of the 20 books in the series, beginning with Iron Lake and up to this year’s offering Spirit Crossing (he’s also written 5 stand-alone novels), I’ve learned much, much more about the Ojibwe, something Krueger says he very much enjoys researching and writing

 

“Readers anticipate that a significant element of every story will be additional exposure to the ways of the Ojibwe,” he said. “The truth is that I enjoy this aspect of the work.  Although I have no Indian blood running through my veins, in college I prepared to be a cultural anthropologist, so exploring other cultures is exciting to me.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Every writer's foremost requirement'

A Writer's Moment: 'Every writer's foremost requirement':   “Over the years, my students influenced me greatly, and I’ve learned many lessons from them. I have an immense amount of respect for the...

'Every writer's foremost requirement'

 

“Over the years, my students influenced me greatly, and I’ve learned many lessons from

them. I have an immense amount of respect for them, and I think that respect for your

audience is the foremost requirement for anyone who wants to write.” – Susan Campbell

Bartoletti

 

Born in Pennsylvania in November of 1958, Bartoletti was a writing teacher for 20 years

before turning to writing herself, inspired by the junior high students she was teaching at

the time. Working with kids also gave her many of the traits and patterns she uses in

developing her characters.  “I felt immense satisfaction in watching my students grow as

writers and I wanted to practice what I preached.”  

 

After publishing her first short story in 1989, she wrote her first children’s book, Silver at

Night, in 1992. Since then she's authored 15  more books, both fiction and nonfiction,

including Growing Up in Coal Country, Dancing With Dziadziu, and Hitler Youth:

Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow, winner of the Newbery Medal.

 

The winner of numerous other awards including the Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction,

and the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, she still teaches but now her students are

Master’s degree candidates in various writing programs as well as enrollees in writing

workshops across the nation.  

 

Character development remains at the heart of every piece that she does and what she

stresses to her writing students.   “When I create a character, it happens in layers,” she

said.  “The more I write and revise, the better I understand my characters.”

A Writer's Moment: The 'surprising' act of writing

A Writer's Moment: The 'surprising' act of writing:    “The act of writing surprises me all the time. A miraculous thing happens when you have an idea and you want to convert it into words... ...

The 'surprising' act of writing

 

 “The act of writing surprises me all the time. A miraculous thing happens when you have an idea and you want to convert it into words... and then you start to create a work of art,and that's another miracle, and it remains mysterious to the writer, or to this writer anyway.” – Janette Turner Hospital

Born in Australia on this date in 1942, Turner Hospital has spent most of her adult life in either Canada or the U.S.   “All my writing, in a sense, revolves around the mediation of one culture (or subculture) to another,” she said.  Best known for her novels, she also is an accomplished and productive short story writer and has won numerous awards in both genres.

One of Turner Hospital's most accomplished novels is Borderline, set on the “borderline”of Canada and the U.S. While primarily a thriller, the story also focuses on where to draw the "borderline" between intrusions into others' lives and the responsibility for them.       

 Among her many awards are Canada’s Seal Award, the CDC Literary Prize, and the Australian National Book Council Award.   Also a teacher of both literature and creative writing, she has been writer-in-residence at major universities in Australia, Canada, England and the U.S. and recently has been Visiting Writer-in-Residence at the University of South Carolina.

“The themes of dislocation and connection are constant in my work,” she said.  “So are the themes of moral choice and moral courage. I am always putting my characters into situations of acute moral dilemma . . . to find out what they will do.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A slice of the imagination'

A Writer's Moment: 'A slice of the imagination':  

'A slice of the imagination'

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Waiting for that music'

A Writer's Moment: 'Waiting for that music':   “Poems have a different music from ordinary language, and every poem has a different kind of music of necessity.  That's, in a way, th...

'Waiting for that music'

 

“Poems have a different music from ordinary language, and every poem has a different kind of music of necessity.  That's, in a way, the hardest thing about writing poetry; waiting for that music, and sometimes you never know if it's going to come.” – C.K. Williams

Born in New Jersey in November of 1936, poet, critic and translator Charles Kenneth “C.K.,” Williams won nearly every major poetry award including the 1987 National Book Critics Circle Award for Flesh and Blood, the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Repair, the 2003 National Book Award for The Singing, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement, awarded shortly before his death in 2015.

Williams once noted, “When you begin to write poems because you love language, because you love poetry, the writing of poems becomes incredibly pleasurable and addictive.”   For Saturday’s Poem, here is Williams’

SILENCE

The heron methodically pacing like an old-time librarian down the stream through the patch of woods at the end of the field, those great wings tucked in as neatly as clean sheets, is so intent on keeping her silence, extracting one leg, bending it like a paper clip, placing it back, then bending the other, the first again, that her concentration radiates out into the listening world, and everything obediently hushes, the ragged grasses that rise from the water, the light-sliced vault of sparkling aspens. 

Then abruptly a flurry, a flapping, her lifting from the gravitied earth, her swoop out over the field, her banking and settling on a lightning-stricken oak, such a gangly, unwieldy contraption up there in the barkless branches, like a still Adam's-appled adolescent; then the cry, cranky, coarse, and wouldn't the waiting world laugh aloud if it could with glee?

A Writer's Moment: A well-balanced approach

A Writer's Moment: A well-balanced approach:   “I make money using my brains and lose money listening to my heart. But in the long run my books balance pretty well.”  – Kate Seredy   ...

A well-balanced approach

 “I make money using my brains and lose money listening to my heart. But in the long run my books balance pretty well.” – Kate Seredy

 

Born in Hungary on Nov. 10, 1896, Seredy won the prestigious Newbery Medal for best children’s book for The White Stag, the Newbery Honor (runner-up) twice, and the Caldecott Medal for Best Children’s Book Illustration for The Christmas Anna Angel.  She also won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for The White Stag.  

 

After growing up in Hungary and spending time in Paris, especially during World War I, Seredy emigrated to the U.S., ran a children’s bookshop and started her career as a children’s book illustrator.  Encouraged by editor May Massee to write down bits and pieces of her “growing up” years, she wrote the children’s novel The Good Master, published in 1936 and winner of a Newbery Honor for best book.

 

She wrote 12 children's books and illustrated dozens more, dedicating her last book, Lazy Tinka, to Massee.  Seredy’s papers and illustrations are mostly part of the May Massee Collection at Emporia State University and I had a chance to see them when I spoke to writing classes and then presented as part of the ESU Writers’ Series.  It’s a wonderful collection and I highly recommend visiting the school to view it.

 

“For yesterday and for all tomorrows,” she said, “we dance the best we know.”

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Think it; Dream it; Do it'

A Writer's Moment: 'Think it; Dream it; Do it':   “It’s a cliché, but most people are good at something, and most people are good at what they’re enthusiastic about.” – Tim Rice   Born ...

'Think it; Dream it; Do it'

 “It’s a cliché, but most people are good at something, and most people are good at what they’re enthusiastic about.” – Tim Rice

 Born in England in 1944, Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice – better known to we commoners as “Tim” Rice – turns 80 on Nov. 10th.  The British lyricist and author has done “very good” things in his career, primarily through his collaborations with great musicians like Andrew Lloyd Webber, Alan Menken and Elton John.

 He and Webber wrote Jesus Christ, Superstar, Evita, and the fun musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a show I was fortunate to do in a community theater production (got to play  Joseph’s oldest brother Rueben and sing “One More Angel” in my best Country Western twang). 

 With Menken he wrote the lyrics for the songs in Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and King David; and with John he wrote The Lion King, Aida, and The Road to El Dorado.  Any of those in its own right probably would have earned him lasting acclaim.

 For his writing he has won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a Tony and a Grammy.  He also has been inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, and named a Disney Legend.

“We all dream a lot – some are lucky, some are not,” Rice said of his career. “But if you think it, want it, dream it, then it’s real. You are what you feel.”

A Writer's Moment: Sharing stories and 'reaching for the sun'

A Writer's Moment: Sharing stories and 'reaching for the sun':   “To share our stories is not only a worthwhile endeavor for the storyteller, but for those who hear our stories and feel less alone becaus...

Sharing stories and 'reaching for the sun'

 “To share our stories is not only a worthwhile endeavor for the storyteller, but for those who hear our stories and feel less alone because of it.” – Joyce Maynard

 

Born in New Hampshire on Nov. 5, 1953 Maynard has authored critically acclaimed books in genres ranging from Young Adult to crime, and general fiction to nonfiction memoirs.  She has written 22 books – the latest How The Light Gets In - out this year.  And she writes journalistically for a number of newspapers, magazines and National Public Radio, and is a successful screenwriter. 

Perhaps her most talked about memoir was At Home In The World about her years living with reclusive author J.D. Salinger.  The book earned her both praise and scorn from the literary world.  “I wonder what it is that the people who criticize me for telling this story truly object to: is it that I have dared to tell the story? Or that the story turns out not to be the one they wanted to hear?”  

 

“You write about what you know," Maynard said, "and you also write about what you want to know.”  One of those "things she knows" is raising kids.  The mother of three said her children influenced and helped her writing become stronger. 

 

“It's not only children who grow. Parents do too,” she said.  “As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it myself.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Interesting things happening to interesting people'

A Writer's Moment: 'Interesting things happening to interesting people': "I want readers turning pages until three o'clock in the morning.  I want the themes of books to stick around for a reader.  I'...

'Interesting things happening to interesting people'

"I want readers turning pages until three o'clock in the morning.  I want the themes of books to stick around for a reader.  I'm always trying to find a way to balance characters and theme." - Guy Gavriel Kay

Born in Canada on Nov. 7, 1954 Kay has had a knack for creating “page turner” books over several decades. He cut his teeth on fantasy writing by traveling to Oxford to assist Christopher Tolkien, son of J.R.R. Tolkien, in editing J.R.R.’s unpublished work The Silmarillion, then began his own career with The Summer Tree. 

Many of Kay’s 17 novels are set in fictional realms that resemble real places during real historical periods, such as Constantinople during the reign of Justinian I, or Spain during the time of El Cid.    Among his recent bestsellers are A Brightness Long Ago and its sequel All the Seas of the World, inspired by the Italian Wars in the 15th Century.   His next book, Written on the Dark, set in Medieval France, is scheduled for release in May.  Kay’s novels have been translated into some 30 languages with settings and lead characters from almost every era.

He’s won multiple awards, including The World Fantasy Award for Ysabel, set in modern day France while also putting his teenage lead into direct contact with characters from both the distant past and a “parallel” world to ours.   “I have always argued,” he said, “(that) in a good novel, interesting things happen to interesting people, no matter who they are or where they are from.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Slow and steady to win the race'

A Writer's Moment: 'Slow and steady to win the race':       “Writing doesn't come real easy to me. I couldn't write a novel in a year. It wouldn't be readable. I...

'Slow and steady to win the race'

 

 

 “Writing doesn't come real easy to me. I couldn't write a novel in a year. It wouldn't be readable. I don't let an editor even look at it until the second year, because it would just scare them. I just have to trust that all these scraps and dead-ends will find a way.” – Charles Frazier

 

As a “deliberate” writer myself – especially when I’m working on fiction – I can commiserate with Frazier and long ago decided that getting it done right, regardless of how long it takes to finish is the best route to follow.   Frazier agrees, noting, “Well, I'm a slow writer. For me, a good day is a page, maybe a page and a half. I'd love to be more efficient, but I am not.” 

  

Born on this date in 1950 in Asheville, NC (much in the news these days from the horrific floods they’ve endured), Frazier has authored 5 books beginning with the terrific Cold Mountain – winner of awards as both a book and a movie.  His most recent book is 2023’s The Trackers, which follows a painter tracking down a woman with a valuable painting during The Great Depression.

 

Frazier’s writing is a study in how to draw upon the culture and history of a region – in his case his home state and the Appalachian region.   He said he also loves the music of the region and finding ways to incorporate it into his writings to “flesh out” his stories.

 

“It always helps me connect with characters,” he said, “to think about what music they respond to.”

A Writer's Moment: 'To a place in the imagination'

A Writer's Moment: 'To a place in the imagination':   “I'm trying to write poems that involve beginning at a known place, and ending up at a slightly different place. I&...

'To a place in the imagination'

 

“I'm trying to write poems that involve beginning at a known place, and ending up at a slightly different place. I'm trying to take a little journey from one place to another, and it's usually from a realistic place, to a place in the imagination.” – Billy Collins

Born in New York City in 1941, the two-time U.S. Poet Laureate’s works range from humorous to thought-provoking to deeply moving.   His most recent book is Musical Tables: Poems.   For Saturday’s Poem, here is Collins’ 
                                                Invention                                                        

Tonight the moon is a cracker,
with a bite out of it
floating in the night,

and in a week or so
according to the calendar
it will probably look

like a silver football,
and nine, maybe ten days ago
it reminded me of a thin bright claw.

But eventually --
by the end of the month,
I reckon --

it will waste away
to nothing,
nothing but stars in the sky,

and I will have a few nights
to myself,
a little time to rest my jittery pen.

 

A Writer's Moment: 'How life is lived, you know'

A Writer's Moment: 'How life is lived, you know':   “When I'm writing, I'm trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotional experience, rather than separate m...

'How life is lived, you know'

 

“When I'm writing, I'm trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotional experience, rather than separate myself from it and look back at it from a distance with clarity and tell it as a story. Because that's how life is lived, you know?” – Charlie Kaufman

Born in New York City in November of 1958, Kaufman is a screenwriter, producer, director, and lyricist who wrote the films Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for which he won an Academy Award.   All three scripts appear in the Writers Guild of America’s list of the 101 greatest movie screenplays ever written.

 

It’s been a busy 2024 for Kaufman, writing the Netflix animated movie Orion and the Dark and now his second novel This Face Can Even Be Proved by Means of the Sense of Hearing.  He’s also producing the Broadway play Pre-Existing Condition.

  

“I want to create situations that give people something to think about,” Kaufman said about his works.  “When I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.”