A Writer's Moment: 'Seeing what you meant'

A Writer's Moment: 'Seeing what you meant':   “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”  – E.M. Forster   Born in London in 1879, Forster, best known for his novels A Ro...

'Seeing what you meant'

 

“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” – E.M. Forster

 

Born in London in 1879, Forster, is best known for his novels A Room With a View, Howards End and A Passage to India – all also made into successful films after his death in 1970.

 

A prolific notetaker, he became the author of numerous short stories, essays, speeches and plays despite the fact that he intended his career to be a historian or classicist, studying both disciplines at Cambridge University.   But writing "got in the way" and his voluminous career in that profession followed. 

 

Following the success of his bestselling novels and short stories – Forster went to work for the BBC and in the 1930s and 1940s and became one of Great Britain’s most notable broadcasters, also producing and narrating a popular weekly book review program. 

 

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned,” Forster said, “so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

A Writer's Moment: 'Words working their magic'

A Writer's Moment: 'Words working their magic':   “There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spide...

'Words working their magic'

 

“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.” ― Diane Setterfield

 

Born in Great Britain in August of 1964, Setterfield started her career as a teacher before diving headfirst into writing with The Thirteenth Tale, a New York Times No. 1 best-seller translated into 40 languages.    The book, also made into a movie, has sold over 3 million copies worldwide.

 

Since winning the 2007 Quill Award as Debut Author of the Year, she has authored several more bestsellers, including her latest The Right Sort of Man^.   

 

Setterfield says she’s constantly oscillating between writing and putting herself inside the head of the reader, asking herself questions such as:  How effective is this to my reader? and Have I achieved what I set out to?  But reading, something she advises every author to do, is at the heart of her days.

 

“If I cannot escape for an hour or two every day by reading for pleasure,” she said, “then small problems seem to grow large, and I begin to feel enormously burdened.”

A Writer's Moment: It's how to reach 'the center of life'

A Writer's Moment: It's how to reach 'the center of life':   “Writing is a way of getting at the things most people would prefer to escape.   Writing takes me to the center of life.   That’s my invit...

It's how to reach 'the center of life'

 

“Writing is a way of getting at the things most people would prefer to escape.  Writing takes me to the center of life.  That’s my invitation to my readers as well.” – Steven Millhauser

 

Born in New York City on Aug. 3, 1943 Millhauser is the author of 4 novels, 3 novellas and 7 collections of short stories, winning a Pulitzer Prize for his novel Martin Dressler and The Story Prize for his collection We Others.    His most recent book is 2023’s Disruptions: Stories.

 

A resident of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. where he taught writing at Skidmore for 30 years, Millhauser has earned numerous accolades for his stories.  And his tale Eisenheim the Illusionist was made into the critically acclaimed movie The Illusionist.   Among his published essays, is “The Ambition of the Short Story” in the New York Times Book Review.   

                        

 “I like the way something small can expand into something large.” 

A Writer's Moment: 'Removing those other possibilities'

A Writer's Moment: 'Removing those other possibilities':   “The best thing that can happen to people entering creative professions is the dwindling of all other possibilities.”  –  Dennis Lehane ...

'Removing those other possibilities'

 

“The best thing that can happen to people entering creative professions is the dwindling of all other possibilities.” –  Dennis Lehane

'Born in Boston on this date in 1965, Lehane has had striking success with both his novels (15) and screenplays (more than two dozen, including for hit series like The Wire and Boardwalk Empire).  His most recent success is the 2025 Apple TV series Smoke.  Many of his own novels also have been made into successful films, led by the multiple award-winning Gone, Baby, Gone and Mystic River. 

 

Lehane said his initial plan was not to be a writer, “But from the moment I took my first writing workshop, I was a writer,” he said.  Since achieving literary success he also has taught writing, including being a writer-in-residence at Eckerd College (Florida) where he has co-directed the Writers in Paradise Conference.  

 

“I love to write,” he said, “so it rarely seems like work - even when it gets arduous.”

A Writer's Moment: Writing 'Across the Generations'

A Writer's Moment: Writing 'Across the Generations':   “Writing basically breaks down to relationships between people and that is what you write about.”  – Leon Uris   Born in Baltimore on ...

Writing 'Across the Generations'

 

“Writing basically breaks down to relationships between people and that is what you write about.” – Leon Uris

 

Born in Baltimore on this date in 1924, Uris started reading at age 3, writing by age 4, and writing creatively by age 8.  But it wasn’t until after he came out of World War II (he enlisted at age 17 and spent 4 years in the Marines) that he started his successful career, working for newspapers and also writing short stories before publication of his first novel Battle Cry in 1951.   The book also was made into a popular 1955 movie.  

 

Known for his deep research, Uris wrote a dozen bestselling historical novels, including the mega-bestsellers Exodus, The Haj and Topaz, all made into successful movies.  And he wrote several historical and political nonfiction works, often to provide deeper context for the historical events depicted in his novels.

 

Uris wrote continuously for 50 years until he was struck down by kidney failure in 2003.  He said he always was proud that what he wrote in 1950 was just as much read as the writing he produced 30 or 40 years later.   

 

“You can try to reach an audience, but you just write what comes out of you and hope that it is accepted,” he said.   “You do not – and should not – write specifically to a generation.” 

A Writer's Moment: 'The old remember; the young listen'

A Writer's Moment: 'The old remember; the young listen':   “If the very old will remember, the very young will listen.” – Chief Dan George    Born in British Columbia in the last week of July in 1...

'The old remember; the young listen'

 

“If the very old will remember, the very young will listen.” – Chief Dan George

 

 Born in British Columbia in the last week of July in 1899, First Nation actor, poet and author George is perhaps best-known for his semi-autobiographical book My Heart Soars, a line he also frequently uttered in the movie Little Big Man.   George authored many books, poems and songs, and for Saturday's Poem, here is his thoughtful,

                                      To A Grandchild

Heed the days
when the rain flows freely,
in their greyness
lies the seed of much thought
The sky hangs low
and paints new colors
on the earth.
 
After the rain
the grass will shed its moisture,
the fog will lift from the trees,
a new light will brighten the sky
and play in the drops
that hang on all things.
Your heart will beat out
a new gladness
- if you let it happen.
 
In the midst of a land
without silence
you have to make a place for yourself.
Those who have worn out
their shoes many times
know where to step.
It is not their shoes
you can wear
only their footsteps
you may follow,
- if you let it happen.

A Writer's Moment: 'Your writing enemy'

A Writer's Moment: 'Your writing enemy':   "'Shun security,' I advise aspiring novelists when they complain to me that they are stuck.  'Get disoriented.'  Ma...

'Your writing enemy'

 "'Shun security,' I advise aspiring novelists when they complain to me that they are stuck.  'Get disoriented.'  Maybe your agonizing writing block isn't agonizing enough.  Your enemy is comfort." - John Burdett

Born in London in July of 1951, Burdett is a former lawyer who lived and worked in Hong Kong for 12 years where he started writing, producing the sensational first novel, The Last Six Million Seconds, a murder mystery set in 1997 Hong Kong. 

 

Burdett never really wanted to be a lawyer.  He actually studied English and American Literature at Warwick University where he specialized in the unique combination of Shakespeare and metaphysical poetry.  But, out of despair during the British economic and political crises of the 1970s, he switched to Law.  

 

But, the draw of writing was too great and he abandoned law to pursue a career as a novelist, given a great setting and time – when Hong Kong was being transferred from Great Britain to China – to write  that first bestseller.  His most recent book Death Effect, features an unlikely partnership between a bumbling sheriff and a principled medical examiner in rural Alabama.  Despite setting his first book in Hong Kong and most recent in the U.S., many of his works are set in Thailand.

 “In essence, the Thai people are not materialistic at all. They're not in the least driven by the kind of ambition that drives us. The more I got to know them, and the more time I spent with them, the more I understood that this was a totally legitimate attitude to life, and why not?"

A Writer's Moment: 'It's like developing a photo'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's like developing a photo': "Something happens between a novel and its reader which is similar to the process of developing photographs, the way they did it befo...

'It's like developing a photo'

"Something happens between a novel and its reader which is similar to the process of developing photographs, the way they did it before the digital age.  The photograph, as it was printed in the darkroom, became visible bit by bit.  As you read your way through a novel, the same chemical process takes place." -- Patrick Modiano

  

Born in France on this date in 1945, Modiano is the 2014 Nobel Prize winner, author of more than 40 novels, and noted leader of a style of writing known as “Autofiction,” a combination of autobiography and historical fiction.   Modiano’s analogy of the development of the novel “before our eyes” gives us a bit of a look into his writing style.  He lets the picture slowly unfold, sometimes leaving us startled, sometimes satisfied, sometimes angry, but always interested in what’s coming next.

 

Beginning with 1968’s La Place de l’Etoile, his books delve into the puzzle of identity in ways seldom seen.  And, he tackles a time in France – the German occupation during World War II – that evokes both heroism and shame depending on whose point of view each tale is being told. His most recent work is 2023’s Ballerina.

The winner of almost every major European and French writing award, he was honored for his life’s body of work even prior to winning the Nobel and was – up until that award – one of the few international writers whose work had never been translated into English. Despite his great output and success, he said writing has never been an easy process.  

 “I quickly realized that it is difficult to get started when writing a novel,” he said.  “You have this dream of what you want to create, but it is like walking around a swimming pool and hesitating to jump in because the water is too cold.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Traveling with the characters'

A Writer's Moment: 'Traveling with the characters':   “When I read good stories, I want to write good stories too.” – Sharon Creech   Born in Ohio on this date in 1945, Creech grew up outs...

'Traveling with the characters'

 

“When I read good stories, I want to write good stories too.” – Sharon Creech

 

Born in Ohio on this date in 1945, Creech grew up outside of Cleveland but also spent a lot of time during her formative years visiting family in Kentucky where her time there helped shape both characters and setting for a number of her award-winning books.  Among those are Walk Two Moons, winner of the Newbery Medal, and The Wanderer, a Newbery Honor book shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.  

 

She won the British Carnegie for her book Ruby Holler and was the first American to win both the American Newbery Medal and the British Carnegie.   Also an award-winning poet, Creech started writing while still in college and then taught English and creative writing for several years before writing her first children’s book.   Her most recent book – her 25^th – is One Time.

 

“I love the way that each book — any book — is its own journey,” Creech said.  “You open it, and off you go. You are changed in some way, large or small, by having traveled with those characters.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Every world has its rules'

A Writer's Moment: 'Every world has its rules':   “So many people think that if you're writing fantasy, it means you can just make everything up as you go. Want to add a dragon? Add a ...

'Every world has its rules'

 

“So many people think that if you're writing fantasy, it means you can just make everything up as you go. Want to add a dragon? Add a dragon! Want some magic? Throw it in. But the thing is, regardless of whether you're dealing with realism or fantasy, every world has rules. Make sure to establish a natural order.” – V. E. Schwab

 

 Born in California in July of 1987, Schwab is best known for her Shades of Magic series, her longtime bestseller Vicious, and 2025’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, which topped both the USA Today and New York Times bestseller lists.  And, Victorious is this year’s offering in her popular Villains’ series. 

 

The daughter of a British mom and “Beverly Hills” dad, she is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis where she studied everything from Physics to Film to Art History and English and started her writing career.  While still in college, she sold her debut novel, The Near Witch, to Disney.  But it was 2011’s Vicious that established her as a leading popular writer.

 

The prolific Schwab’s three dozen books and many short stories have received critical acclaim and been translated into more than a dozen languages.  Many also have been optioned for TV and Film.  She said she loves writing across genres and for all ages.   

 

“I think a lot of writers are tempted to add complexity by over-complicating things,” she said.  “But always remember that most natural rules/laws are, at their core, simple. Start simple, and build from there, or you risk getting yourself and your readers tangled.”

A Writer's Moment: Sharing 'everyday hopes and dreams'

A Writer's Moment: Sharing 'everyday hopes and dreams':   “I always tell students that writing a poem and publishing it are two quite separate things, and you should write what you have to write, ...

Sharing 'everyday hopes and dreams'

 

“I always tell students that writing a poem and publishing it are two quite separate things, and you should write what you have to write, and if you're afraid it's going to upset someone, don't publish it.” –  Wendy Cope

 

Born in England in July of 1945, Cope writes lighthearted, award-winning poetry beloved by a wide following of adults and children alike.  Her latest works are Collected Poems and The Orange and Other Poems, both from 2024.  Cope has been lauded for her poems about everyday English life and the hopes, dreams and frustrations of children.   For Saturday’s Poem here is Cope’s,

                                   The Orange

At lunchtime I brought a huge orange –

The size of it made us all laugh.

I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave –

They got quarters, and I had a half.

 

That orange, it made me so happy,

As ordinary things often do

Just lately.  The shopping.  A walk in the park.

This is peace and contentment.  It’s new.

 

The rest of the day was quite easy,

I did all the things on my list

And enjoyed them, and had some time over.

I love you.  I’m glad I exist.

A Writer's Moment: "Good fiction reveals feeling, refines events, lo...

A Writer's Moment:  "Good fiction reveals feeling, refines events, lo...:   "Good fiction reveals feeling, refines events, locates importance and, though its methods are as mysterious as they are varied, inten...

 

"Good fiction reveals feeling, refines events, locates importance and, though its methods are as mysterious as they are varied, intensifies the experience of living our own lives." – Vincent Canby

 

Born in Chicago on July 27, 1924 Canby had the distinction of being both the chief film critic AND the chief theater critic for The New York Times – the only person to ever do so.  As film critic he reviewed more than 1,000 films and he did the hundreds of theater reviews, right up until his death in 2000.

  

He was such a respected writer and reviewer that Bob Hope requested that Canby write his obituary, but Canby died first.  However, he still received the byline on Hope’s story since he had crafted most of it prior to his own death, and Times’ editors didn’t think it could be topped. 

 

Canby’s career was highlighted in an award-winning film For the Love of Movies:  The Story of American Film Criticism, and he also turned his writing into plays and novels authoring the well-received  novels Living Quarters and Unnatural Scenery, and plays like End of the War and The Old Flag, a drama set during the Civil War.  But it was film that he loved best.

 

“Through the magic of motion pictures,” he said, “someone who’s never left Peoria knows the softness of a Paris spring, the color of a Nile sunset, the sorts of vegetation one will find along the upper Amazon and that Big Ben has not yet gone digital.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Distilling the action into a tasty tale'

A Writer's Moment: 'Distilling the action into a tasty tale': “A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.”  – Raymond Chandler   Born in Chicago on July 23, 1888 Chandler started his wr...

'Distilling the action into a tasty tale'

“A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.” – Raymond Chandler

 

Born in Chicago on July 23, 1888 Chandler started his writing career out of desperation after losing his job during the Great Depression.  Finding he had a great knack for writing crime stories he started as a magazine writer for several years before devising his first novel – the longtime bestseller (it’s still in print and selling steadily) The Big Sleep in 1939.

 

Chandler had 7 novels published, including Double Indemnity and The Long Goodbye – considered a masterpiece in the genre and named one of the top 100 novels of the 20^th Century.   A founder of the “hard-boiled school of detective fiction,” Chandler’s protagonist Philip Marlowe was made even more famous through the acting of Humphrey Bogart, who played him in a number of films adapted from Chandler’s works.  

 

Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond books, said Chandler offered “some of the finest dialogue written in any prose” and mystery writer Paul Levine described Chandler's style as the "literary equivalent of a quick punch to the gut."

 

“Write ‘actively,’” Chandler said.  “And when in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Better to be right . . . or wrong?'

A Writer's Moment: 'Better to be right . . . or wrong?':   “Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.”    – Aldous Huxley    Best known for  Brave New W...

'Better to be right . . . or wrong?'

 

“Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.”   – Aldous Huxley

 

 Best known for Brave New World, considered by most critics as one of the ten best language novels of the 20^th Century, and for the non-fiction book The Doors of Perception, Huxley was born into a family of writers and educators in London, England in July of 1894.  

 

Writing by the age of 10, he was editing the distinguished magazine Oxford Poetry in his early 20s before starting his creative writing career doing short stories and poetry.  At age 30 he turned to novels, all successful, though none so much as Brave New World, released in 1931.  Following the novel’s immense success, he became a travel writer and his travel books are still considered among the best ever written.  Huxley finished his writing career as a television and film scriptwriter in the United States, where he died in 1963.   

 

Widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time, Huxley was nominated seven times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Of Brave New World, he said he wrote it out of fear that mankind would lose individual identity in the future and needed to be prepared.  

 

“The most distressing thing that can happen to a prophet is to be proved wrong,” he said.  “The next most distressing thing is to be proved right.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Well, Imagine That'

A Writer's Moment: 'Well, Imagine That':   “If the novelist isn't surprised by where his book ends up, he or she probably hasn't written anything worth remembering .” – Tom ...

'Well, Imagine That'

 

“If the novelist isn't surprised by where his book ends up, he or she probably hasn't written anything worth remembering.” – Tom Robbins

 

Born in Blowing Rock, NC in July of 1932, Robbins went to school in Virginia and after a stint in the military started his writing as a journalist.  His creative writing career started in the mid-1960s when he rejected an opportunity to write a book about art but told the publisher that he had an idea for a novel.  The publisher gave him a chance and the result was the bestseller, Another Roadside Attraction.

 

Robbins, who died in 2025, wrote 8 bestselling novels, many dozens of short stories and essays, and 2 nonfiction books, including the self-declared “un-memoir” Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life.  Heading up the list of his many successes is his irreverent novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, also made into a popular movie.  Ultimately, Writer’s Digest named him one of the 100 Best Writers of the 20^th Century.

 

“The one thing emphasized in any creative writing course is 'write what you know,' and that automatically drives a wooden stake through the heart of imagination,” Robbins said.  “If they really understood the mysterious process of creating fiction, they would say, 'You can write about anything you can imagine.'”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's a search for order'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's a search for order':   “For me, poetry is always a search for order.”  – Elizabeth Jennings Jennings was born in England on this date in 1926 and was lauded f...

'It's a search for order'

 “For me, poetry is always a search for order.” – Elizabeth Jennings

Jennings was born in England on this date in 1926 and was lauded for her lyric poetry and mastery of form.  She started writing in her mid-20s after graduating from Queen Anne’s College and was published in such major journals as Oxford Poetry, New English Weekly, The Spectator and Poetry Review before her first book, Poems, – winner of the Arts Council of Great Britain’s award for “Best First Book of Poetry” – came out in 1953.

She followed it with A Way of Looking, winning the Somerset Maugham Award given to leading writers under the age of 35.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Jennings’,

Delay
The radiance of the star that leans on me
Was shining years ago. The light that now
Glitters up there my eyes may never see,
And so the time lag teases me with how

Love that loves now may not reach me until
Its first desire is spent. The star's impulse
Must wait for eyes to claim it beautiful
And love arrived may find us somewhere else.

A Writer's Moment: 'A most solitary occupation'

A Writer's Moment: 'A most solitary occupation':   “Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He or she must be alone, uninterrup...

'A most solitary occupation'

 

“Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He or she must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking." – Jessamyn West

 

Born in Indiana on this date in 1902, West wrote dozens of short stories and 20 novels, most notably her acclaimed The Friendly Persuasion – also made into an Academy Award “Best Movie” nominee – and its sequel, Except For Me and Thee, eventually made into a much-heralded television movie.

 

West started her adult life as an elementary teacher in California before contracting tuberculosis and being sent to a sanatorium for treatment.  While there, undergoing extensive treatment and rehabilitation, she began writing to pass the time and after regaining her health decided to continue pursuing writing as a career.

 

Her stories, loosely based on tales told to her by her mother and grandmother about their life in rural Indiana, often reflect West’s proclaimed love of bygone eras.

  

“The past,” she said, “is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.”

A Writer's Moment: Taking on 'the task of finding reality'

A Writer's Moment: Taking on 'the task of finding reality':   “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck” – Iris Murdoch   Born in Irel...

Taking on 'the task of finding reality'

 

“Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck” – Iris Murdoch

 

Born in Ireland on July 15, 1919 Murdoch grew up in London and first made her writing “commitment” with a series of philosophical essays and the blockbuster novel Under the Net that catapulted her onto the international literary scene in the early 1950s.  The novel ultimately was selected by both Time magazine and Modern Library as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.   

 

Murdoch went on to produce 25 more novels and many additional works of philosophy, poetry and drama, winning The Booker Prize for The Sea, The Sea, The Whitbread Literary Award for Fiction, and the James Tait Black Award for The Black Prince.  Shortly before her death in 1999, she was awarded the Golden PEN Award for "a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature.”

 

Her literary life was further honored by two memoirs from her husband John Bayley -- the books serving as the basis for the movie Iris, featuring Kate Winslett and Judi Dench as the younger and older Murdoch.

 

“We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion,” Murdoch wrote.   “The great task in life is to find reality”

A Writer's Moment: 'Lke arranging pieces of music'

A Writer's Moment: 'Lke arranging pieces of music':   “Ordering is difficult. It's like arranging pieces of music in a concert: What do you put first? What do you put after the intermissio...

'Lke arranging pieces of music'

 

“Ordering is difficult. It's like arranging pieces of music in a concert: What do you put first? What do you put after the intermission? I want the reader to be sort of surprised, to come to each story freshly.” – Lydia Davis

Born in Massachusetts on July 15, 1947 Davis is primarily a short story writer, although she’s also published novels and essays and served as a translator from French and other languages.  She’s especially noted for her translations of French literary classics, including Proust's Swann’s Way and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.  

 

 Winner of the Man Booker Prize for her lifetime body of work, Davis has been acclaimed for the brevity and humor of many of her short stories.   Davis has compared her shorter stories to skyscrapers, because, "They are surrounded by an imposing blank expanse."  Some of her stories have been labeled poetry, even though she insists they are not.  A number of her stories are highlighted in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis.  Her most recent works are 2023’s Our Strangers: Stories and 2025’s Into the Weeds. 

 

While both her parents were writers and teachers, Davis gravitated toward a career in music, initially studying piano, then violin.  But she said it probably was inevitable that she would become a writer.

 

"I was probably always headed to being a writer, even though that wasn't my first love,” she said.  “I guess I must have always wanted to write in some part of me or I wouldn't have done it.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Creating an appropriate past'

A Writer's Moment: 'Creating an appropriate past':   Isn't it amazing the way the future succeeds in creating an appropriate past?” – John Leonard   Born in Great Britain in July of 1...

'Creating an appropriate past'

 

Isn't it amazing the way the future succeeds in creating an appropriate past?” – John Leonard

 

Born in Great Britain in July of 1965, Leonard was raised and educated there but now makes his home in Australia.  The author of 5 poetry collections, his most recent work is the 2024 novel Shakespeare in Virginia.  For Saturday’s Poem, from his book Braided Lands, here is:

 

You Don't Write a Poem

You don't write a poem-

What you do is discover

That there is a world,

Quite similar to our own,

Except that it contains

This one extra poem.

 

And what you recognise

Is that this one poem

Makes all the difference

© John Leonard

A Writer's Moment: 'Just grow up and write'

A Writer's Moment: 'Just grow up and write':   “I don't mean it to sound egomaniacal, but in a way, for me, it was very useful to imagine that I was the only one who was taking pen ...

'Just grow up and write'

 

“I don't mean it to sound egomaniacal, but in a way, for me, it was very useful to imagine that I was the only one who was taking pen in hand. I'd always been told that it was impossible to be published, so I was writing only for myself.” – Jane Hamilton

 

Born in Illinois in July of 1957, Hamilton was the youngest of five children and started writing early, accumulating prizes for poetry and short stories even before she was out of high school.    

 

 At Carleton College in Minnesota, she continued along her literary pathway, earning a degree in English and then heading off to an internship at Dell Publishing for Children.   But she got sidetracked enroute, meeting her husband-to-be in Wisconsin and deciding to forego book editing to join his apple growing business – something they still do.  But, since apple growing is “seasonal," she had time to pursue her writing during “off season.”

 

Her first novel, The Book of Ruth, won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, the Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award, and the Wisconsin Library Association Banta Book Award for Best First Novel.   She followed it with A Map of the World, firmly establishing her credentials.  Both books also became critically acclaimed films.   Much of her work (she now has 8 best-selling novels) reflects her personal experiences, settings and characters.  Her latest is 2025’s The Phoebe Variations.

 

Hamilton said she always thought that even though she was not a particularly good speller, writing was just something she was meant to do. 

 

“I just assumed that if you were a girl-child, you were supposed to grow up and write.”

A Writer's Moment: Writing 'a clear vision of life'

A Writer's Moment: Writing 'a clear vision of life':   “My joy as a writer is circling around and around and down and down to find out who the real person is. “ – Jill McCorkle   Born in Lu...

Writing 'a clear vision of life'

 

“My joy as a writer is circling around and around and down and down to find out who the real person is. “ – Jill McCorkle

 

Born in Lumberton, North Carolina on this date in 1958, McCorkle is an award-winning short story writer and professor of creative writing at North Carolina State University.   Winner of the Dos Passos Prize – given annually to a writer in the middle of his or her career who is deemed to be “under-recognized for his/her life’s work” – she also is a frequent speaker at regional and national book and author events.  

 

McCorkle has published seven novels and five collections of short stories, led by Going Away Shoes; Final Vinyl Days & Other Stories; and Life After Life.  Her most recent work is the 2024 collection Old Crimes.

 

“For me, a happy ending is not everything works out just right and there is a big bow,” she said about her stories.  “It's more coming to a place where a person has a clear vision of his or her own life in a way that enables them to kind of throw down their crutches and walk.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Just telling a good story'

A Writer's Moment: 'Just telling a good story':   “I get up at an unholy hour in the morning my workday is completed by the time the sun rises. I have a slightly bad back which has made an...

'Just telling a good story'

 

“I get up at an unholy hour in the morning my workday is completed by the time the sun rises. I have a slightly bad back which has made an enormous contribution to American literature.” –  David Eddings

 

Born in Spokane, Washington on this date in 1931, Eddings made that statement shortly before his death in 2009.  And the writings about which he spoke were several fantasy series’ mostly created in partnership with his wife Leigh.  

 Eddings grew up in the Puget Sound area and that rugged region became the setting for some of his early (and moderately successful) stories, like High Hunt, but it was in the Fantasy genre’ that he made his mark.   His call to the world of fantasy came from a doodled map he drew one morning over coffee - a doodle that became the geographical basis for a world he called Aloria.

 

A terrific chess player, too, Eddings took Leigh’s suggestion that he incorporate elements of chess into his books.  Combining that with the new world he imagined led to he and Leigh writing 5 best-selling series, starting in 1982.  Their last, The Dreamers, ended in in 2006 after she died following a series of strokes.   The Dreamers featured characters who could use their dreams to foresee visions of the future.  His tales often seemed prophetic but David pooh-poohed those who held him up as a visionary.

 

“I'm a storyteller, not a prophet,” he said.  “I'm just interested in telling a good story.”

A Writer's Moment: It's finding that 'right word' combination

A Writer's Moment: It's finding that 'right word' combination:   “Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary - how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one...

It's finding that 'right word' combination

 

“Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary - how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
 

Born in July of 1804, Hawthorne became one of the prominent mid-19^th Century American writers, primarily through tales about his native New England. His fictional works, labeled by some as "Dark romanticism," have themes centering on the inherent evil and sin of humanity with moral messages and deep psychological complexity embedded in them.

 

His most prominent story that has lasted through the ages, is his tale of adultery, The Scarlet Letter.  It’s success catapulted him from near obscurity into the center of the New England writing movement that included such prominent writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  He took advantage of his new popularity to rapidly publish The House of the Seven Gables, Wonder Book for Girls and Boys, and a new version of Twice-Told Tales, which hadn't succeeded in its earlier release.

 

The great-great grandson of one of the judges at the Salem Witch Trials, Hawthorne wrote often about Puritanic themes and espoused being pure, accurate and meticulous, especially when it came to the power that writers' words can convey.   

“Accuracy," he said, "is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy of dishonesty.  Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

A Writer's Moment: The 'Ongoing Gleam' of hope

A Writer's Moment: The 'Ongoing Gleam' of hope:   Francis Scott Key, 1779-1843, was a lawyer and amateur poet from Georgetown, Washington, D.C., when he wrote the poem “The Defence of Fort...

The 'Ongoing Gleam' of hope

 

Francis Scott Key, 1779-1843, was a lawyer and amateur poet from Georgetown, Washington, D.C., when he wrote the poem “The Defence of Fort McHenry” that gave us our nation’s national anthem. 

 

Key had been sent to negotiate the release of American prisoners aboard one of the British ships in the Baltimore Harbor but instead was detained aboard the ship as the British prepared to bombard Fort McHenry and capture the city.  Unable to do anything but watch the bombardment – on the night of September 13–14, 1814 – he saw at dawn that the American flag still flew above the embattled fort and excitedly reported the outcome to the other prisoners being held on the ship.

 

Then, inspired, he wrote his famous poem about the experience – the first stanza becoming our anthem.  For Saturday’s Poem, here are the first two stanzas (there are 4 stanzas in the complete poem) of Key’s later re-titled,

 

The Star Spangled Banner 

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,   

O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming;   

And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;   

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave   

O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?       

 

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,   

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes, 

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,   

As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?   

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,   

In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;   

‘Tis the star-spangled banner; O long may it wave 

O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!       

A Writer's Moment: 'It was the key to success'

A Writer's Moment: 'It was the key to success':   “Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of you...

'It was the key to success'

 

“Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life.” – Neil Simon
 

Born in the Bronx, NY on July 4, 1927 Simon grew up during the Great Depression – a great shaper of both his life and his art.  Writing about “life” became the grist for his creative mill, beginning with work on comedy scripts for radio and then gravitating to the Broadway stage.

 

He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, earning more combined Oscar and Tony nominations than any other writer.   After breaking onto the playwriting scene with Come Blow Your Horn in 1961, Simon won his first Tony for the long-running and one of the most widely performed plays in history, The Odd Couple. 

 

The first playwright to earn 15 “Best Play” awards, he was given a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.   Simon, who died in 2018, also won a Pulitzer Prize for his play Lost in Yonkers, was named for the Mark Twain Prize, America’s top humor award, and was the first living playwright to have a Broadway theater named in his honor.    

 

While humor is at the heart of most of Simon’s works, his rich variety of entertaining, memorable characters also portray the human experience with serious themes.   His said he thought his willingness to try new things was a key to his success.   

 

“If no one ever took risks,” he said, “Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.”

A Writer's Moment: The foundation for 'the biggest stories'

A Writer's Moment: The foundation for 'the biggest stories':   “The biggest stories are written about the things which draw human beings closer together.” –   Susan Glaspell   Born on July 1, 1876 ...

The foundation for 'the biggest stories'

 

“The biggest stories are written about the things which draw human beings closer together.” –  Susan Glaspell

 

Born on July 1, 1876 Glaspell was a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright as well as an actress, novelist and journalist who joined with her husband George Cram Cook to found the Provincetown Players, America’s first modern American theater company.    She also served in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as Midwest Bureau Director of the Federal Theater Project, created during the Great Depression as a relief measure for artists, writers, directors and theater workers to help keep regional theater alive.

 

A prolific writer, Glaspell wrote 9 novels, 15 plays, more than 50 short stories, and a biography, a leading writer on issues of gender, ethics, and dissent.  She has been recognized as a pioneering feminist writer and America’s first important modern female playwright.  Her one-act play Trifles, written in 1916, is frequently cited among the greatest works of American theater.  It also was adapted as a short story and 50 years later as a popular movie A Jury of Her Peers.

 

Inspired by the great investigative journalist Nellie Bly, she worked as a school newspaper reporter at  Drake University where she got her first taste of “being on-stage” as a leading member of the school's debate team.  She simultaneously worked at the Des Moines Daily News and became the paper's first full-time female reporter after graduation.

“I am glad I worked on a newspaper,” she said of that experience. “It made me know I had to write . . .  whether I felt like it or not.  And I loved it!”

A Writer's Moment: 'The difficult challenge of fiction'

A Writer's Moment: 'The difficult challenge of fiction':   “Truth is, every writer has to be a good editor, and you have to edit yourself. It's a skill every writer has to acquire.”  – Lisa Sco...

'The difficult challenge of fiction'

 

“Truth is, every writer has to be a good editor, and you have to edit yourself. It's a skill every writer has to acquire.” – Lisa Scottoline

 

Born in Philadelphia on this date in 1955, Scottoline grew up in Merion – site of many great pro golf tournaments – and earned a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.   On track toward a law firm partnership, she decided to try her hand at writing after the birth of her daughter and penned the award-winning crime mystery Final Appeal.  And, just like that, she switched careers.

 

Now the author of more than 30 books, her works have been translated into 30 languages and sold over 30 million copies.  Among her titles are Look Again and Don't Go, both reaching number 2 on the New York Times bestseller list.  Her most recent is 2024’s The Truth About The Devlins. 

 

An Edgar Award winner, Scottoline has served as President of the Mystery Writers of America and also has co-authored a number of bestselling non-fiction memoirs with her daughter (Francesca Serritella). 

 

“I love writing both fiction and memoir,” she said.  “Both have unique challenges; bottom line, fiction is hard because you have to come up with the credible, twisty plot, and memoir is hard because you have to say something true and profound, albeit in a funny way.”

A Writer's Moment: Chronicling his times in words and images

A Writer's Moment: Chronicling his times in words and images:   “With a photograph, you are left with the same modes of interpretation as you are with a book. You ask: 'What do we know about the aut...

Chronicling his times in words and images

 

“With a photograph, you are left with the same modes of interpretation as you are with a book. You ask: 'What do we know about the author and their background? What do I know about the subject?'” – Joel Sternfeld

 

Born in Brooklyn, NY on this date in 1944, Sternfeld is noted for his large-format documentary pictures and for helping establish color photography as a respected artistic medium.  With many works in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Getty Center in Los Angeles, he has influenced generations of photographers.

 

His essays and writings alongside his photos also have made him an important chronicler of his life and times.  American Prospects, perhaps Sternfeld's most known book, explores the complexity and irony of human-altered landscapes in the United States, often leading to devastating results.  His book On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam depicts sites where tragedies occurred, supplemented by his thoughtful text about the events that happened there.

A longtime professor of photography at New York’s Sarah Lawrence University, his books of photos and essays on photography are part of the photographic teaching lexicon at colleges and universities worldwide.  His most recent book is 2024’s Our Loss reflecting on the climate crisis and nature’s resilience in the face of environmental harm.

 

“A photographer,” he said, “must choose a palette just as painters choose theirs.”   

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

A Writer's Moment: Taming those 'unruly' novels:   “I noticed, when I taught elementary school, how true the squeaky wheel thing is, and how endearing squeaky wheels can be! Because when yo...

Taming those 'unruly' novels

 

“I noticed, when I taught elementary school, how true the squeaky wheel thing is, and how endearing squeaky wheels can be! Because when you're being a squeaky wheel, you're also really letting people know who you are.” – Aimee Bender

 

Born in California on June 28, 1969 Bender is known for her surreal stories and characters.   She’s authored 6 books, led by her first collection of short stories The Girl in the Flammable Skirt.  Her numerous short stories have been published in magazines and journals ranging from Harper's, McSweeney's and The Paris to inclusion in a number of anthologies, and her story Faces was a 2009 Shirley Jackson Award finalist for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense.  

 

Also the winner of two Pushcart Prizes for her writing, her novels include The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and her most recent, The Butterfly Lampshade. 

 

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

A Writer's Moment: 'It's how we become participants'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's how we become participants':   “We participate in the creation of the world by de-creating ourselves.”  – Anne Carson   Carson, born in Canada on June 21, 1950 is a ...

'It's how we become participants'

 

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

 

Carson, born in Canada on June 21, 1950 is a poet, essayist, translator, and teacher at universities in both the U.S. and Canada.   She also is the winner 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.