A Writer's Moment: Answering the question: 'Why not me?'

A Writer's Moment: Answering the question: 'Why not me?': “I do seem to have a lot of family secrets in my novels. I guess I'm one of those writers who is often writing about the same sort of th...

Answering the question: 'Why not me?'

“I do seem to have a lot of family secrets in my novels. I guess I'm one of those writers who is often writing about the same sort of themes but taking different angles on them.” – Nancy Werlin

 

Born in Salem, Massachusetts on this date in 1961, Werlin was nominated for a National Book Award for The Rules of Survival and won an Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel for The Killer's Cousin.  She also was an Edgar finalist for Locked Inside. A graduate of Yale, she has written a dozen Young Adult novels, including New York Times-bestselling fantasy Impossible.  Her newest book is Healer and Witch.

 

Werlin started reading at age 3, reading up to 10 books a week by 3^rd grade.  She said she decided to be a writer in 4^th grade and while creative writing is a central part of her life, she also works as a technical writer for a software company and says being employed gives her the financial freedom to take the time she needs on each creative writing project. 

 

“By the time I was ten, I knew I wanted to be a writer to create what I loved so much,” Werlin said.  "I just read all the time, and it occurred to me that somebody had to write these things – and why shouldn't it be me?"

A Writer's Moment: 'Focus and follow through'

A Writer's Moment: 'Focus and follow through':   “If TV's getting in your way of writing a book, then you don't want to write a book bad enough.” – Andrea Seigel   Born in Ana...

'Focus and follow through'

 

“If TV's getting in your way of writing a book, then you don't want to write a book bad enough.” – Andrea Seigel

 

Born in Anaheim, CA on this date in 1979, Young Adult novelist Seigel grew up in California and then did her writing education on the East Coast (at Brown and Bennington).  She says she’s a great example of how an introvert can be successful in an extrovert’s world.  

 

The author of four novels, she also has become a successful screenwriter (her most recent being 2022’s “The Silent Twins”), and two of her books – The Kid Table and Everybody Knows Your Name – also have been turned into films.  She said that while she studied writing in college, her love of books began as a young girl. 

"I'd go to the library so I could sit in a big, quiet room and listen to pages being turned," she said.  "There was a boring librarian who everyone in fifth grade hated. But I loved her because when she would read us stories in her soft voice, she'd turn my head into a snow globe."

A Writer's Moment: They're the 'packhorses of literature'

A Writer's Moment: They're the 'packhorses of literature':   “Nonfiction writers are the packhorses of literature. We're meant to carry the story. If we can make it up and down the mountain by a ...

They're the 'packhorses of literature'

 

“Nonfiction writers are the packhorses of literature. We're meant to carry the story. If we can make it up and down the mountain by a reliable if not scenic route, we have delivered.  Technique is optional.” – Stacy Schiff

 

Born in Adams, MA on Oct. 26, 1961 Schiff was an editor before shifting into writing biography and non-fiction.  She’s the author of half-a-dozen acclaimed biographies sandwiched around numerous essays and articles in many magazines and newspapers, including The New Yorker, The New York Times and The New York Times Book Review.

 

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her biography of Vera Nabokov, she also was a finalist for the Pulitzer for her biography of Antoine de Saint Expurey (author of The Little Prince).   Her work The Witches: Salem, 1692 was hailed by The New York Times as "an almost novelistic, thriller-like narrative.”

 

 Schiff’s most recent book The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams also has won numerous awards, including the Colonial Dames of America Book Prize and the William Hickling Prescott Award for Excellence in Historical Writing.    

 

Schiff enjoys research but sometimes runs into walls trying to decipher her subjects’ writing.  “In an ideal world,” she said, “the perfect biographical subject would have been the star of his penmanship class at grade school - and would thereafter write an English that positively sings.” 

 

 “The biographer,” she said, “has two lives:  The one she leads, and the one she ultimately understands.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Like an abstract painting, open to interpretation'

A Writer's Moment: 'Like an abstract painting, open to interpretation':   “Certainly one of the surprising truths of having a book published is realizing that your book is as open to interpretation as an abstract...

'Like an abstract painting, open to interpretation'

 

“Certainly one of the surprising truths of having a book published is realizing that your book is as open to interpretation as an abstract painting. People bring their own beliefs and attitudes to your work, which is thrilling and surprising at the same time.” – Marisha Pessl

 

Born in Clarkston, Michigan on this date in 1977 Pessl grew up in North Carolina.  After earning a degree from Barnard College, she was working as a financial consultant when she decided to try her hand at creative writing.   

 

After two failed attempts at novels, she found success in 2006 with the bestseller Special Topics in Calamity Physics about the relationship between a daughter and her controlling, charismatic father.   Her book Night Film also made the New York Times Bestseller List. 

 

Her most recent title is 2024’s Young Adult novel Darkly.

 

 “I believe writers need to be chameleons, or like (actress) Meryl Streep . . . play all sorts of characters,” she said.  “A good writer should be able to cross gender lines and people of all social classes.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Snapshot . . . Or a big piece of cloth?'

A Writer's Moment: 'Snapshot . . . Or a big piece of cloth?':   “ I think of something quite different from a snapshot. I know of a lot of poems, some very fine ones, that are like snapshots, but I'...

'Snapshot . . . Or a big piece of cloth?'

 

“I think of something quite different from a snapshot. I know of a lot of poems, some very fine ones, that are like snapshots, but I'm more interested in poetry that is like an endless film, long stories, things that weave together many different strands, like a big piece of cloth, not like a photograph.” – Robert Bringhurst 

 

Born in Los Angeles in October of 1946, Bringhurst earned degrees from Indiana University and the University of British Columbia, remaining in Canada to become a Canadian citizen.  He has authored or edited more than 50 books of prose and poetry.  His latest (out this year in each genre’) are Buying the Ghosts a Drink: Eleven Conversations with Robert Bringhurst and Collected Poems.   For Saturday’s Poem, here is Bringhurst’s,

 

                                                     These Poems, She Said

These poems, these poems,
these poems, she said, are poems
with no love in them. These are the poems of a man
who would leave his wife and child because
they made noise in his study. These are the poems
of a man who would murder his mother to claim
the inheritance. These are the poems of a man
like Plato, she said, meaning something I did not
comprehend but which nevertheless
offended me. These are the poems of a man
who would rather sleep with himself than with women,
she said. These are the poems of a man
with eyes like a drawknife, with hands like a pickpocket's
hands, woven of water and logic
and hunger, with no strand of love in them. These
poems are as heartless as birdsong, as unmeant
as elm leaves, which if they love love only
the wide blue sky and the air and the idea
of elm leaves. Self-love is an ending, she said,
and not a beginning. Love means love
of the thing sung, not of the song or the singing.
These poems, she said....
You are, he said,
beautiful.
That is not love, she said rightly.

A Writer's Moment: Helping 'make a little more sense to teens'

A Writer's Moment: Helping 'make a little more sense to teens':   “If I can write a book that will help the world make a little more sense to a teen, then that's why I was put on the planet.” – Lauri...

Helping 'make a little more sense to teens'

 

“If I can write a book that will help the world make a little more sense to a teen, then that's why I was put on the planet.” – Laurie Halse Anderson

 

Born in Potsdam, NY on this date in 1961, Anderson is a multiple award-winning journalist and Young Adult novelist catapulted to fame with her first novel Speak, a National Book Award finalist and major motion picture.    Recipient of Sweden’s  Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the richest prize in children’s literature, she also was presented the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her ongoing contributions to Young Adult literature. 

 

 

Published in 1999, Speak is the story of a 13-year-old sexual assault victim who loses her ability to speak after the attack.   In addition to being a National Book Award finalist, it also won the Golden Kite award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and been translated into 16 languages.

 

Anderson has written more than 30 YA and Children’s books including Fever 1793, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a Junior Library Guild selection, and Chains, a National Book Award finalist and first in her “Seeds of America” series.  That book also won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.  Her most recent is 2025’s Rebellion. 

 

Lauded for creating characters teens can identify with, she noted, “That can be the most painstaking aspect of being a teen, figuring out what the world really looks like.  If you find someone in a book, you know you're not alone and that's what's so comforting about books.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A daunting, but rewarding endeavor'

A Writer's Moment: 'A daunting, but rewarding endeavor':   “Completing any writing project, particularly a novel, is a daunting prospect. Many people become frozen by the prospect. Others keep wait...

'A daunting, but rewarding endeavor'

 

“Completing any writing project, particularly a novel, is a daunting prospect. Many people become frozen by the prospect. Others keep waiting for the right time. Some wait for the spark of inspiration. Even experienced writers find it is easier to do anything other than actually write. – Bob Mayer 

  

Born in The Bronx, New York on Oct. 21, 1959, Mayer is a prolific author of more than 60 novels in multiple genres.  And, when I say “multiple genres,” that includes Romance where he holds the distinction of being the only male author on the Romance Writers of America Honor Roll.    

 

He began his writing career in 1991 with the bestselling Green Beret novel Eyes of the Hammer and has never looked back.  His latest, in the “Wil Kane series” is 2024’s Shelter From The Storm.

 

A graduate of West Point and former Green Beret himself, he encompasses both his military experience and his fascination for history, legends and mythology in his writing.    And, collaborating with Romance writer Jennifer Cruise, he did a series of military-themed romance novels starting with Don’t Look Down and the New York Times number one bestseller Agnes and the Hitman.

 

While getting the work done hasn’t seemed to be a problem for Mayer, he notes that for most writers it can become a long process. 

 

“It takes hundreds of days to get to 'The End.'  As a writer, you have to be ready to put in those hundreds of days.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The message is clear'

A Writer's Moment: 'The message is clear':   “The message is clear: libraries matter. Their solid presence at the heart of our towns sends the proud signal that everyone - whoever the...

'The message is clear'

 

“The message is clear: libraries matter. Their solid presence at the heart of our towns sends the proud signal that everyone - whoever they are, whatever their educational background, whatever their age or their needs - is welcome.” –  Kate Mosse

  

Born in Chichester, England on Oct. 20, 1961 Mosse is both a champion of libraries and award-winning writer of fiction and nonfiction books, numerous short stories, essays and journalistic pieces.   Her best-known novel is the archaeological mystery Labyrinth, translated into more than 37 languages and made into a television miniseries.

 

Although known for her adventure and ghost fiction, inspired by real history, Mosse's first two works were non-fiction: Becoming A Mother, published in 1993 and The House: Behind the Scenes at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, published to accompany the BBC2 show The House.   She has authored 13 novels – the latest being 2024’s The Map of Bones – 5 nonfiction books, and 3 plays.

  

Mosse has contributed essays and stories to a number of anthologies and collections, and her journalistic pieces appear in a wide range of newspapers and magazines, including The Times of London.   She is a co-founder/creator of Great Britain’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, which has spawned a sister award, The Women's Prize for Nonfiction.   In 2024, she was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to literature, women and charity.  

 

A stickler for detail and accuracy in historical writing, she noted, “I am not a fan of historical fiction that is sloppy in its research or is dishonest about the real history.”

A Writer's Moment: Is it 'procrastination' or 'detailed creation?'

A Writer's Moment: Is it 'procrastination' or 'detailed creation?':   “I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story.” – Alan Garner   Bo...

Is it 'procrastination' or 'detailed creation?'

 

“I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story.” – Alan Garner

 

Born in the front room of his grandmother’s house in Cheshire, England in October of 1934, Garner grew up near that northwestern English city, where he has chosen to set most of his books.  Best known for his children's fantasy novels and his re-tellings of traditional British folk tales, his work is firmly rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native county.  

 

Noted for his “slow, but steady” writing style, he takes his time but always produces winners, earning him almost every major writing award for young people’s literature in the process, including both the Carnegie Medal and The Guardian Prize.  He was runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award.

  

Garner has produced 18 books and 9 collections of short stories.  His most well-known are The Owl Service, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Stone Book, and Treacle Walker, a finalist for the Booker Prize.  In 2024, a week before his 90th birthday, Garner published the memoir Powsels and Thrums.  Framed and inspired by his grandfather, the book contains poems and short essays on the people and events in Garner’s life starting at Manchester Grammar in 1946.

  

As for being a procrastinator, Garner said, “Look, if you are going to write, nothing will stop you.  And if you are not going to write, nothing will make you.” 

A Writer's Moment: Banking on 'the creative imagination of the reader'

A Writer's Moment: Banking on 'the creative imagination of the reader':   “If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab th...

Banking on 'the creative imagination of the reader'

 

“If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear, and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained at a very high level.” – John le Carre

 

Born in Poole, England on this date in 1931, le Carre’s wrote The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, a 60-year (and counting) bestseller that also was turned into an award-winning movie.    A one-time spy himself, le Carre, whose real name is David John Moore Cornwell, established himself as one of the greatest “espionage” authors of all time. 

 

Most of le Carre's novels are set in the Cold War Era (1945–91) and feature British MI-6 agents, unheroic political functionaries engaged in psychological more than physical drama.  His 1986 novel A Perfect Spy, cited as his most autobiographical espionage novel, chronicles the boyhood moral education of his character Magnus Pym and how it leads to his becoming a spy.

 

Le Carre earned his bachelor’s degree from Oxford University which awarded him an Honorary Doctorate degree in 2012.  In 2020, shortly before his death, he was given the Olof Palme Award by Sweden and donated the $100 thousand prize to Doctors Without Borders.  Le Carre wrote 26 novels, the final one, Silverview. published posthumously in 2021.  Thirteen of them were made into movies or television series.

 

“Like every novelist, I fantasize about film” he said.  “But, novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion.  They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from, but they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.”

A Writer's Moment: Chronicling 'A familiar daily struggle'

A Writer's Moment: Chronicling 'A familiar daily struggle':   “If someone is alone reading my poems, I hope it would be like reading someone's notebook. A record. Of a place, beauty, difficulty. A...

Chronicling 'A familiar daily struggle'

 

“If someone is alone reading my poems, I hope it would be like reading someone's notebook. A record. Of a place, beauty, difficulty. A familiar daily struggle.” – Fanny Howe

Born in Buffalo, NY on Oct. 15, 1940, Howe was awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize by the Poetry Foundation “For lifetime accomplishments that warrant extraordinary recognition.”  One of America’s most widely read poets, Howe also had a distinguished record as an essayist and novelist and had more than 50 books published.   Her final book, released earlier this year following her death in 2025, is the poetry collection This Poor Book.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Howe’s,

                                    Footsteps

I have never arrived
into a new life yet.

Have you?

Do you find the squeak
of boots on snow

excruciating?

Have you heard people
say, It wasn't me,

when they accomplished
a great feat?

I have, often.
But rarely.

•

Possibility
is one of the elements.
It keeps things going.

The ferry
with its ratty engine
and exactitude at chugging
into blocks and chains.

Returning as ever
to mother's house
under a salty rain.

Slave up, slave down.

A Writer's Moment: 'Fire, joy and no apologies'

A Writer's Moment: 'Fire, joy and no apologies':   “Forget market or publishers or whatever. Just write with fire and joy, and in my own experience, those are the stories of mine people hav...

'Fire, joy and no apologies'

 

“Forget market or publishers or whatever. Just write with fire and joy, and in my own experience, those are the stories of mine people have wanted to read.” – Patrick Ness

 

Born at Fort Belvoir, VA on Oct. 17, 1971 Ness is best known for his books for young adults, including the Chaos Walking trilogy and Monsters of Men and A Monster Calls, back-to-back winners of the prestigious Carnegie Medal from the Association of British Librarians. 

 

The author of 14 novels and many short stories, he grew up in several different U.S. states, moving around as a member of an Army family.  After earning a degree from the University of Southern California, he relocated to London and now holds dual U.S.-British citizenship.

 

A Monster Calls, while a massive bestseller for Ness, was first an idea from fellow author Siobhan Dowd.  Gravely ill, she had developed it and asked Ness to do the writing and artist Jim Kay to illustrate it.  The resulting book not only won the Carnegie for Ness but also the Kate Greenaway Medal for Kay’s art – the first time one novel has won both major awards. 

 

While Ness’s books are primarily for Young Adults, he’s built a large support group of adult readers, too, and said YA fiction is popular with adults because many adults “hunger for narrative just as badly as teenagers do.”   Ness’s most recent books are Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody: The Hat of Great Importance (2025) and the first in a new planned trilogy Piper at the Gates of Dusk (out this past spring).

 

 “A book cannot apologize for what people may think it should be,” Ness said.  “It has to be authoritative. That's what I want as a reader - I want to be confident that the book will do its job.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The greatest story we can tell'

A Writer's Moment: 'The greatest story we can tell':   “Baseball is a game that shouts, 'Slow Down' to America. Stop tweeting, texting, blogging, watching cable news, and obsessing abou...

'The greatest story we can tell'

 

“Baseball is a game that shouts, 'Slow Down' to America. Stop tweeting, texting, blogging, watching cable news, and obsessing about polls . . . and focus-group-driven politicians.” – Mike Barnicle

 

Born in Worcester, MA on Oct. 13, 1943, Barnicle has had a long award-winning career as a journalist for both print and electronic media.  He is the author of thousands of columns on American life, politics, religion and sports, especially baseball, back in the foreground now during the playoffs and World Series.   

 

Baseball, Barnicle said, has been a key part of American culture for well.   “(It) allows you to lose yourself in a dream, to feel and remember a season of life when summer never seemed to die and the assault of cynicism hadn't begun to batter optimism.”

 

In addition to his columns (he’s done more than 4,000), Barnicle writes for numerous magazines including Time, ESPN Magazine and Esquire, and is a regular on TV programs like The Today Show and Morning Joe.  And he’s been featured on documentaries like Fabulous Fenway: America's Legendary Ballpark and Ken Burns’ Baseball: The Tenth Inning. 

 

“I don't think we treat people very well in the media, both as customers - and I call them customers - of newspapers and magazines, or TV news,” Barnicle said.  “We don't understand that the greatest story that we could tell, each and every day, is the story of the people around us.”

A Writer's Moment: 'This is what you do'

A Writer's Moment: 'This is what you do': “ I write because I write - as anyone in the arts does,   You're a painter because you feel you have no choice but to paint. You're ...

'This is what you do'

“I write because I write - as anyone in the arts does,  You're a painter because you feel you have no choice but to paint. You're a writer because this is what you do.”  – Richard Price

 

Born in The Bronx, NY on Oct. 12, 1949 Price is perhaps best known for novels like Clockers and Lazarus Man (his newest out in 2024) and screenwriting efforts like The Color of Money., Not a writer to get pigeonholed into any particular genre, he also has written feature stories, magazine essays, and radio programs, and taught writing at Columbia, Yale and NYU.

 

Price earned degrees at Cornell and Columbia and also studied at Stanford before launching his successful writing career with The Wanderers, a coming-of-age story set in The Bronx and written when he was just 24 years old.   That book and Clockers also were adapted into movies.  

 

To date he has written 10 novels, 12 screenplays and 5 television screenplays.  His work has been praised for its blend of humor, suspense, dialogue, and character development.   The recipient of an American Arts & Letters Award and inductee into the American Arts & Letters Academy (in 2009), he lives and works in Harlem. 

 

“I think the definition of an artist is not necessarily tied into excellence or talent,” he said.  “An artist is somebody who, if you took away their freedom to make art, would lose their mind.”

A Writer's Moment: It's because 'of the love of words'

A Writer's Moment: It's because 'of the love of words':   “I always loved words.  I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them.” – Anne...

It's because 'of the love of words'

 

“I always loved words.  I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them.” – Anne Rice 

 

Born in New Orleans in October of 1941, Rice is probably best known for her popular and influential series of novels, The Vampire Chronicles, revolving around the central character of Lestat.   Two of the books – Interview With The Vampire and Queen of the Damned – were made into movies, and many were adapted later as comic books, adding to their luster and ongoing popularity.

 

In addition to the 13 books in the “Chronicles” series, Rice authored two dozen more novels, with sales of some 100 million copies, placing her among the most popular Amcrican authors in the 20^th and early 21^st centuries.  The winner of several Bram Stoker Awards for superior achievement, she was named for the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award, its highest honor, in 2004.   

 

While many of her books are set in New Orleans, she lived and wrote in California where she earned a master’s degree in creative writing at San Francisco State University.  Rice said one of the biggest influencers on her writing was British writer Charles Dickens.

 

 “Everyone in his time admired him,” she said, “but I think . . . he's not spoken of enough.  I claim Dickens as a mentor . . . one of my driving forces.”  

A Writer's Moment: 'What if we take a risk?'

A Writer's Moment: 'What if we take a risk?':   “Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” – e. ...

'What if we take a risk?'

 

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” – e. e. cummings

 

Born in Cambridge, MA in October of 1894, Edward Estlin "E. E." Cummings, who died in 1962, wrote nearly 3,000 poems; 2 autobiographical novels; 4 plays, and several essays and was one of the eminent “voices” of 20^th century literature.  While his poetry often dealt with love and nature, he said some, “were just for fun.”  For Saturday’s Poem, here is cummings’

                                        If

If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and a lie warn’t a lie,
Life would be delight,—
But things couldn’t go right
For in such a sad plight
I wouldn’t be I.

If earth was heaven and now was hence,
And past was present, and false was true,
There might be some sense
But I’d be in suspense
For on such a pretense
You wouldn’t be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
Things would seem fair,—
Yet they’d all despair,
For if here was there
We wouldn’t be we.

A Writer's Moment: 'Someone to tell it too'

A Writer's Moment: 'Someone to tell it too':   “Someone to tell it too is one of the fundamental needs of human beings.” – Miles Franklin   Born in New South Wales, Australia in Oct...

'Someone to tell it too'

 

“Someone to tell it too is one of the fundamental needs of human beings.” – Miles Franklin

 

Born in New South Wales, Australia in October of 1879, Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin was best known for her worldwide bestselling novel My Brilliant Career – now also a popular Netflix series.

 

Franklin grew up writing, first encouraged by her elementary school teacher Mary Gillespie and then by a local newspaper editor who published a number of her articles during her teenage years.   My Brilliant Career, published in 1901, is a semi-autobiographical retelling of those early writing years, following the life of an irrepressible teenage girl growing to womanhood in rural New South Wales.  

 

Her writing took her first to Britain and then the United States during the first part of the 1900s before she served as a nurse during World War I.  Returning to Australia she continued to find success with her books, including the popular novels All That Swagger and Who Was Joseph Furphy? (in collaboration with Kate Baker).  Both books won Australia’s coveted S.H. Prior Memorial Prize for fiction.

 

Traumatized by her war experiences, she became a staunch anti-war advocate, both cheered and vilified for her views.  Undaunted by those in the latter camp, she noted, “It’s a sign of your own worth sometimes if you are hated by the right people.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the great advantage of being a writer'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the great advantage of being a writer':   “The great advantage of being a writer is that you're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is usef...

'It's the great advantage of being a writer'

 

“The great advantage of being a writer is that you're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.” – Graham Greene

 

Born in England in October of 1904, Greene is listed among the greatest English language writers of the 20th century.  Shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature, he produced 25 bestselling novels and wrote dozens of short stories, essays, plays and movie scripts while continuing to work as a journalist throughout his 67-year career. 

 

Born into a wealthy family, Greene studied history at Oxford but turned to journalism shortly after completing his education there.  He was working as an editor at The Times of London when his first novel, The Man Within, was published in 1929, earning him universal acclaim.  He went on to win Britain’s two oldest and prestigious literary prizes –  the Hawthornden Prize for his masterpiece The Power and the Glory and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Heart of the Matter. 

 

Also considered one of the most “cinematic” of 20^th century writers (nearly all of his novels and many of his short stories were made into movies or television shows), his characters are both interesting and controversial, for which Greene had a logical explanation.  

 

“(You know) the moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about.  At that moment he's alive and you just have to leave it to him to do whatever he prefers.”

A Writer's Moment: Just omit those 'dull bits'

A Writer's Moment: Just omit those 'dull bits':   “Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.” – Clive James   Born in Australia on this date in 1939, James was an author, critic, br...

Just omit those 'dull bits'

 

“Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.” – Clive James

 

Born in Australia on this date in 1939, James was an author, critic, broadcaster, poet and humorist who lived and worked in Great Britain most of his adult life. James broke into the writing world in the 1970s as a television critic for The Observer and gained a wide reading audience with his autobiographical series Unreliable Memoirs.  First published in 1980, the acclaimed series, also published as a book, provided terrific biographical sketches of many of the 20th century’s most famous figures.

 

James wrote 5 memoirs, 4 novels and 10 poetry collections – including The Book of My Enemy, a volume that takes its title from his earlier humorous poem "The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered” (a term used in bookselling to put books in a bargain basement bin).

 

He also wrote a well-received translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy and penned 7 “Epic” poems, the last “The River in the Sky” released just months before his death in 2019.

 

Humor, James said, is an essential part of every writer’s arsenal.  “Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds.  A sense of humor is just common sense . . . dancing.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the great general drama of human spirit'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the great general drama of human spirit':   “It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a stor...

'It's the great general drama of human spirit'

 

“It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a story, a narrative of adventure and of vision, of character and of incident. It is also a portrait of the great general drama of the human spirit.” – Peter Ackroyd

 

Born in London on Oct. 5, 1949 Ackroyd is a biographer, novelist and historian who has authored award-winning pieces on such luminaries as William Blake, Charles Dickens, T.S. Eliot and Charlie Chaplin.  He’s also earned The Somerset Maugham Award for The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde, and Whitbread Awards for T.S. Eliot and the novel Hawksmoor.   His novel Chatterton was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

 

A seemingly tireless writer, Ackroyd has authored 42 nonfiction books; 19 novels and 4 books of poetry, including 2025's Forgotten London: Exploring the Hidden Life of the City and this year’s Auden, a biography on the British-American poet.    Ackroyd’s first novel was 1982’s The Great Fire of London, a reworking of Dickens’ Little Dorrit.  It not only put him on the writing map but set the stage for a writing style that showcases what he calls "the spirit of place.” 

  

“I don’t think I ever read a novel until I was 26 or 27.   I wanted to be a poet … (and) had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history.  But those three elements in my life," he said, "have become the most important.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Just like a magic carpet ride'

A Writer's Moment: 'Just like a magic carpet ride':   “A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.” – Caroline Gordon   ...

'Just like a magic carpet ride'

 

“A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.” – Caroline Gordon

 

Born in Kentucky on Oct. 6, 1895 Gordon was a novelist, literary critic and friend of nearly every famous writer of the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s.  

 

A “free spirit” (her term for herself), she and husband Alan Tate often hosted major writers in their Kentucky home where “writing was the talk from dawn ‘til dark.”  F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, T.S. Eliot, Robert Penn Warren and Ford Madox Ford, the writer she considered her “mentor,” were frequent visitors. 

 

Winner of both a 1932 Guggenheim Fellowship following publication of her first novel Penhally, and a 1934 O. Henry Award for her short story Old Red, later the lead work for her bestselling Old Red and Other Stories, she authored 10 novels and dozens of short stories.

 

Most of her works were set in the South and many of them autobiographical in nature, providing the world with an in-depth look at the region and the times.  The Collected Stories of Caroline Gordon, published at the time of her death in 1981, was lauded by Warren “for enriching our literature uniquely in this century.” 

Gordon said she thought of her writing as a form of art.  “And art,” she said, “should never be judged.  It should be the judge of us.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Yes, you know what he means'

A Writer's Moment: 'Yes, you know what he means':   “People are always giving you credit for really wanting to say more than you said. What you've got to say, you say.” – Shel Silverste...

'Yes, you know what he means'

 

“People are always giving you credit for really wanting to say more than you said. What you've got to say, you say.” – Shel Silverstein

 

Born in Chicago on Sept. 30, 1930 Silverstein was a poet, singer-songwriter, cartoonist, screenwriter, children’s book author and illustrator, whose works have been translated into 30 languages and sold over 20 million copies.  His best-known book – continuously in print since its publication in 1964 – is The Giving Tree. Silverstein won two Grammy Awards, including one for Johnny Cash’s mega-hit A Boy Named Sue, and one for the song I’m Checking Out.   Among his many award-winning poems are “Where The Sidewalk Ends,” “Clarence Lee From Tennessee,” and “A Light in the Attic.” For Saturday’s Poem, here is Silverstein’s,

     The Little Boy and the Old Man

Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."

                        Said the old man, "I do that too."

 

The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."

                        "Well, I do that too," laughed the little old man.

 

                        Said the little boy, "I often cry."

                        The old man nodded, "So do I." 

 

"But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems

                        Grown-ups don't pay attention to me.”

 

And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.

                        "I know what you mean," said the little old man.

A Writer's Moment: The key to 'transporting her readers'

A Writer's Moment: The key to 'transporting her readers':   “I don't believe in writing anything that I don't know about or haven't researched about personally. I like to transport the r...

The key to 'transporting her readers'

 

“I don't believe in writing anything that I don't know about or haven't researched about personally. I like to transport the reader to places, and in order to do that I have to do the research.” –  Jackie Collins

 

Born in Hampstead, England in October of 1937, Collins was the author of 32 novels, all of which appeared on The New York Times bestseller lists.  Her books, many still going strong, have sold over 500 million copies and been translated into 40 languages.

A naturalized U.S. citizen who also maintained her British citizenship, she started writing in 1968, encouraged by her husband who called her “a born storyteller.”  And so she began writing, turning out the bestselling The World is Full of Married Men on her first try.  From that point on she never really stopped writing, her final book The Santangelos released just before her death from breast cancer in 2015.  

 

Eight of Collins' novels have been adapted for the screen, either as films or television miniseries and others are still under consideration.  And while her books often were lambasted by critics and even fellow writers, the public loved them.

 

 “Inspiration is all around me,” she said of her prolific output.  “I can read a newspaper article and come up with an idea for a book.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Those stories behind the truth'

A Writer's Moment: 'Those stories behind the truth':   “I can't speak for readers in general, but personally I like to read stories behind which there is some truth, something real and abov...

'Those stories behind the truth'

 

“I can't speak for readers in general, but personally I like to read stories behind which there is some truth, something real and above all, something emotional. I don't like to read essays on literature; I don't like to read critical or rational or impersonal or cold disquisitions on subjects.” – Laura Esquivel

 

Born in Mexico City on this date in 1950, Esquivel wrote the worldwide bestselling novel and award-winning screenplay Like Water for Chocolate.  The book is the all-time bestselling novel in Mexico and the film the winner of more than two dozen international awards.   It was the first of 10 novels for Esquivel, whose latest is the Spanish language My Black Past. 

 

Also noted for her essays on life, love and food – based on the culture of Mexico but resonating around the globe – Esquivel’s compilation of many of her best were published in another huge bestselling book Between Two Fires.   She characterizes the kitchen as the most important part of the house; “a pleasurable source of knowledge and understanding.” 

 

When asked if she likes fiction or film better, she leaned into fiction.

“In film you can use images exclusively and narrate a whole story very quickly, but you don't always so easily find the form in cinema to dig deeper into human thoughts and emotions,” she explained.  “In a novel you can much more easily express a character's inner thoughts and feelings.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Write what you most enjoy'

A Writer's Moment: 'Write what you most enjoy':   “Sometimes the characters develop almost without your knowing it. You find them doing things you hadn't planned on, and then I have to...

'Write what you most enjoy'

 

“Sometimes the characters develop almost without your knowing it. You find them doing things you hadn't planned on, and then I have to go back to page 42 and fix things. I'm not recommending it as a way to write . . . but it works for me.” – Barbara Mertz

 

Born in Canton, IL on this date in 1927, Mertz wrote under her own name and the pseudonyms Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels.  A noted academic, she held multiple degrees in ancient history and Egyptology, including a Ph.D. in the latter field, and one of her mystery series (written as Peters) focuses on a professor who holds a degree in Egyptology.

 

Mertz wrote 71 mostly mystery and suspense books, although two of her nonfiction books on ancient Egypt also are still in print. More than a dozen of her books were nominated for or won best novel or best mystery awards, led by Trojan Gold; Naked Once More; The Last Camel Died at Noon; and Night Train to Memphis.

                                  

Named an Anthony Awards Grandmaster for mystery writing in 1986 and Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster in 1998, she wrote bestsellers right up until her death in 2013.   When asked why she liked writing mysteries, suspense and thrillers instead of “scholarly” works, she replied that it was what she most enjoyed. 

 

“There are lots of things to write about,” she said, “but I think it would be difficult to write books I don't like to read.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A great path to vicarious living'

A Writer's Moment: 'A great path to vicarious living':   “Fiction, for me, is sort of a protracted way of saying all the things I wished I said the night before.” – Christopher Buckley   The...

'A great path to vicarious living'

 

“Fiction, for me, is sort of a protracted way of saying all the things I wished I said the night before.” – Christopher Buckley

 

The only child of conservative author and speaker William F. Buckley, Christopher was born in New York City on this date in 1952 and made his own way in the writing world as a noted humorist and satirist.   He has written 20 novels, published in 16 languages.  Among his best-known books are The White House Mess, No Way To Treat A First Lady and Thank You For Smoking – the latter made into a popular movie as well.  His most recent satirical novel is Has Anyone Seen My Toes?

 

Buckley’s journalistic pieces have appeared in many top magazines and newspapers, and he also has done considerable work in public relations.  “In public relations,” He said, “you live with the reality that not every disaster can be made to look like a misunderstood triumph.” 

 

Buckley says writing is a great way to live a life you might only imagine.  “You live vicariously through your characters.”

A Writer's Moment: Another catalyst for inspiration

A Writer's Moment: Another catalyst for inspiration:   Every writer knows autumn begins when the stirrings of nature and its changes cause us to write things down.  For some, it creates a condi...

Another catalyst for inspiration

 

Every writer knows autumn begins when the stirrings of nature and its changes cause us to write things down.  For some, it creates a condition of melancholy; for others exuberance.  Regardless, it provides yet another catalyst for inspiration.

 

Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus, more often known for melancholy, was so moved by an autumn walk that he wrote, “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”   And, for Saturday’s Poem, here’s another viewpoint from award-winning writer Judith Viorst.   

       Summer’s End
One by one the petals drop
There's nothing that can make them stop.
You cannot beg a rose to stay.
Why does it have to be that way?

The butterflies I used to chase
Have gone off to some other place.
I don't know where. I only know
I wish they didn't have to go.

And all the shiny afternoons
So full of birds and big balloons
And ice cream melting in the sun

Are done.
I do not want them done.

A Writer's Moment: 'The habit that leads to writing success'

A Writer's Moment: 'The habit that leads to writing success':   “What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and ...

'The habit that leads to writing success'

 

“What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and write. I'm lucky I learned that habit a really long time ago. I credit my mother with that. She was an English teacher, but she was a writer.” – Luanne Rice

The prolific Rice, born in New Britain, CT on this date in 1956, has practiced what she preaches turning out three dozen bestselling novels.  Many of her books also have been adapted into successful movies or television series.  And she reaches a worldwide audience with translations in some 30 languages. 

 

Rice was first published (a poem in the Hartford Courant) at age 11, had her first short story published in American Girl magazine when she was 15, and began writing novels in her late 20s.  Her debut novel Angels All Over Town won several awards and established her as a major writing talent.  Among her most well-known titles are The Lemon Orchard, Little Night, The Silver Boat, and Sandcastles.  Her most recent, Until Midnight, has just been released.

Rice said extensive research, creation of characters who are based on “real people she has met and been inspired by,” and her dreams all make up her stories. 

 

“While novels are fiction,” she said, “mine are usually very close to my heart.”

A Writer's Moment: "It's what belongs to literature'

A Writer's Moment: "It's what belongs to literature':   “God would not give us the same talent if what were right for men were wrong for women.” – Sarah Orne Jewett   Born in Maine in Septem...

"It's what belongs to literature'

 

“God would not give us the same talent if what were right for men were wrong for women.” – Sarah Orne Jewett

 

Born in Maine in September of 1849. Jewett was a novelist, short story writer and poet, best known for her local color works set along or near Maine’s southern seacoast and recognized as an important practitioner of American Literary Regionalism.

 

Educated in Boston, where she met many of New England’s leading writers while still in her teens, Jewett was first published in Atlantic Monthly in 1868 and went on to become one of the most-read short story writers of the 1870s and ‘80s.  Fellow author William Dean Howells said Jewett possessed “an uncommon feeling for talk — I hear your people.”

 

Best known among her 20 books (many still in print today) are A White Heron, which is a collection of her best short stories; A Country Doctor: and the children’s book Betty Leicester.  Many of her best poems are collected in the book simply known as Verses.  

 

Jewett, who died in 1909, said she often contemplated whether her works deserved recognition. 

 

“The thing that teases the mind over and over for years and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper,” she said, “is whether – little or great – it belongs to Literature.”