A Writer's Moment: 'These make humanity'

A Writer's Moment: 'These make humanity':   “Love, hope, fear, faith - these make humanity. These are its sign and note and character.” – Robert Browning   Love can be a major in...

'These make humanity'

 

“Love, hope, fear, faith - these make humanity. These are its sign and note and character.” – Robert Browning

 

Love can be a major influence on writers’ works, but for Browning (born in May of 1812) and Elizabeth Barrett (born in May of 1806), love fired both their personal relationship and their writing.  Their love story and marriage led to some of the most important poems by both including her famous love sonnets, highlighted by “Sonnet 43” known by its popular name “How do I love thee?"  

 

For Saturday’s Poem here is, 

 

              How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with a passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

A Writer's Moment: 'Where to find your writing ideas'

A Writer's Moment: 'Where to find your writing ideas':   “The first time I can remember thinking that I would like to be a writer came in sixth grade, when our teacher Mrs. Crandall gave us an ex...

'Where to find your writing ideas'

 

“The first time I can remember thinking that I would like to be a writer came in sixth grade, when our teacher Mrs. Crandall gave us an extended period of time to write a long story. I loved doing it. I started working seriously at becoming a writer when I was 17.” –  Bruce Coville

 

Born in Syracuse, NY on May 16, 1950 Coville has authored more than 100 Children’s and Young Adult books.  But like every versatile writer, he tried his hand at a number of things – including toymaking, gravedigging, assembly line worker and then teaching elementary school – before turning to writing.

 

“I loved teaching,” he said.  And for a time he thought that was going to be his life’s work.   But writing was still on his mind, so he talked to his students about what they wanted to read, and it sounded a lot like what he also liked to read when he was a kid. “I read books that made me laugh but also made me shiver in terror. I wanted to make books that made other people feel the same way.”

After a few “false starts” he published his first children’s book The Foolish Giant, illustrated by his wife Catherine.  Translated into over a dozen languages, it is still popular among readers everywhere.  Many of his novels – led by multiple-award winners like My Teacher Glows in the Dark and I Was a 6th Grade Alien – have earned awards, and he has been honored with the Empire State Award for Excellence in Literature for Young People, given by the New York Library Association for his life’s work.

 

Keep looking everywhere for ideas is his writing advice.  “Ideas are all around you - everything gives you ideas,” he said.  “But the real source is the part of your brain that dreams.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Looking out to a rich, wonderful universe'

A Writer's Moment: 'Looking out to a rich, wonderful universe':   “Books were the window from which I looked out of a rather meager and decidedly narrow room onto a rich and wonderful universe. I loved th...

'Looking out to a rich, wonderful universe'

 

“Books were the window from which I looked out of a rather meager and decidedly narrow room onto a rich and wonderful universe. I loved the look and feel of books, even the smell... Libraries were treasure houses. I always entered them with a slight thrill of disbelief that all their endless riches were mine for the borrowing.” –  Zilpha Keatley Snyder

 

Born in California in May of 1927, Snyder primarily wrote books for children and young adults – at a rate of nearly one per year during the height of her writing prowess.  She won three Newbery Awards along the way for The Egypt Game, The Headless Cupid and The Witches of Worm.  Often a blend of realism and the supernatural, her books feature thoughtful, courageous girls or young women as the protagonists.

 

A graduate of Whittier College, Snyder was an elementary and middle school teacher before she began writing fiction in the 1960s, starting with short stories.  Her 1964 debut novel Season of Ponies made several bestseller lists, and she was soon writing full time, completing 46 books between 1964 and 2011.  She died in 2014.

  

Snyder said even though she was a teacher first, she always dreamed of writing and couldn’t imagine any other profession.  

 

“It grew from the dreams I always had as a child,” she said. “I think writing is an extension of a childhood habit - the habit of entertaining oneself by taking interesting bits of reality and building upon them.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Once hooked, always involved'

A Writer's Moment: 'Once hooked, always involved':   “The thing about reading is that if you are hooked, you're not going to stop just because one series is over; you're going to go a...

'Once hooked, always involved'

 

“The thing about reading is that if you are hooked, you're not going to stop just because one series is over; you're going to go and find something else.” – Eoin Colfer

Born in Ireland in May of 1965 Colfer, whose first name is pronounced Owen, is best known for his Artemis Fowl children’s book series, although he also gained considerable fame as the author of the 6^th edition of the popular Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series – titled And Another Thing.

 

Colfer was a teacher of Middle Schoolers before writing a standalone book called Benny and Omar, which his students loved.  Encouraged by their response, he then wrote Artemis Fowl, about a 12-year-old criminal mastermind.  His many Fowl tales since have been wildly popular and are now out in 44 languages, also spinning off into graphic novels and movie productions. 

 

His books have earned numerous awards, including the British Children’s Book of the Year, The Irish Book Awards ‘Children’s Book of the Year,’ and The German Children’s Book of the Year.   His most recent titles are 2025’s Firefox Moon and the 2023 children’s picture book Three Tasks for a Dragon (written with P.J. Lynch).

 

Ever a teacher, Cofer is a popular speaker at writing conferences and workshops for aspiring writers, where he encourages persistence as a key to success.

 

“I often meet frustrated young writers who say they've only got so far and just can't finish a book,” he said.  “Even if you don't happen to use what you've worked on that day, it has taught you something and you'll be amazed when you might come back to it and use it again.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A reason to continue'

A Writer's Moment: 'A reason to continue':   “ I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes nowhere; but other times - and this...

'A reason to continue'

 

“I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes nowhere; but other times - and this, I think, is a sense you develop - I can tell that the line wants to continue. If it does, I can feel a sense of momentum - the poem finds a reason for continuing.” – Billy Collins

 

Born in New York City in 1941, Collins is a former U.S. Poet Laureate, internationally acclaimed author of dozens of collections of poetry, and recipient of several international prizes for his contributions to the field of literature and letters.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Collins’, 

                                                Morning

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?

This is the best—
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on espresso—

maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins—
but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,

dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,

and, if necessary, the windows—
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse

A Writer's Moment: It's a discipline 'you have to love'

A Writer's Moment: It's a discipline 'you have to love':   “ Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time. And you have to love it in order to endure the solitude and the discipline.”  – Peter Be...

It's a discipline 'you have to love'

 

“Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time. And you have to love it in order to endure the solitude and the discipline.” – Peter Benchley

 

Born in New York City on May 8, 1940 Benchley (who died in 2006) wrote the novel Jaws, subsequently made into a blockbuster movie by Steven Spielberg, who said he initially found many of the characters unsympathetic and actually wanted the shark to win. 

 

Benchley came from a writing legacy, his grandfather Robert being one of the founders of the famed writing group known as the Algonquin Round Table.  But Peter struggled to get his own foot in the publishing door and nearly decided against it.  He had little early success and was just doing part-time freelance writing when he pitched the idea for Jaws as “one final attempt to stay alive as a writer.” And the rest, as the saying goes . . .

Released in 1974, Jaws was at or near the top of the New York Times bestseller list for 44 weeks and has been continuously in print ever since.   While he wrote a couple more bestselling novels, including The Deep (also adapted as a movie), he had more success as a screenwriter (11 movie adaptations) and writing about conservation.   His book Ocean Planet: Writings and Images of the Sea is considered one of the definitive works on the topic.  Today, the annual Peter Benchley Ocean Awards are awarded to recognize conservation efforts on behalf of the world's oceans.  

 

“The ocean is the only alien and potentially hostile environment on the planet into which we tend to venture without thinking about the animals that live there, how they behave, how they support themselves, and how they perceive us,” he said.  “Without the oceans, there would be no life on earth.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The keys to writing success'

A Writer's Moment: 'The keys to writing success':   “If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what...

'The keys to writing success'

 

“If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what you want to say” – Jeffery Deaver

 

Born in Glen Elyn, Illinois on this date in 1950 Deaver is one of America’s premiere mystery/crime writers having earned most of the top awards in the genre and making almost every major bestseller list around the globe.  A lawyer, too (he graduated from Fordham Law and was in the profession before writing), he’s written 50 novels and 5 collections of short stories.  His “Colter Shaw” stories – the latest being 2025’s South of Nowhere – are the basis for the hit TV series Tracker.

 

Among his many awards are a Nero Wolfe and three Ellery Queen Reader's Awards for Best Short Story and Best Novel of the Year.  And Colter Shaw notwithstanding, Deaver's most popular books feature Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic detective, and NYPD Detective Amelia Sachs.  His books The Devil’s Teardrop, which first introduced Rhyme, and The Bone Collector, first in the Rhyme series, also were popular television movies.  His newest The Collateral Heart is just out in both text and audio versions

 

“My books are primarily plot driven,” he said, “but the best plot in the world is useless if you don’t populate them with characters that readers can care about.” 

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the real art of writing success'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the real art of writing success':   “The real art is not to come up with extraordinary clever words but to make ordinary simple words do extraordinary things. To use the lang...

'It's the real art of writing success'

 

“The real art is not to come up with extraordinary clever words but to make ordinary simple words do extraordinary things. To use the language that we all use and to make amazing things occur.” –  Graham Swift

 

Born on this date in London in 1949, Swift is considered one of the most important contemporary British writers.  His first novel, The Sweet Shop Owner, was published in 1980, and his subsequent works have won much praise and many awards. Waterland, in particular, was one of the finalists for the prestigious Booker Prize.   He’s had three books – Waterland, Last Orders, and Mothering Sunday – made into well-received movies (both at the box office and by critics). 

 

He’s now authored 11 novels, 1 nonfiction book and 3 collections of short stories, the most recent 2025’s Twelve Postwar Tales.

 

A meticulous and deliberate writer, Swift decries those who say he writes too slow.

 

“It can be dismaying . . . for a novelist to compare the slowness of the writing with the speed of the reading,” he said.  “Novels are read in a matter of days, even hours.  A writer may labor for weeks over a particular passage that will have its effect on a reader for an instant - and that effect may be subliminal or barely noticed.”

A Writer's Moment: 'expanding on the power of narrative'

A Writer's Moment: 'expanding on the power of narrative':   “As a writer and as a reader, I really believe in the power of narrative to allow us ways to experience life beyond our own; ways to refle...

'expanding on the power of narrative'

 

“As a writer and as a reader, I really believe in the power of narrative to allow us ways to experience life beyond our own; ways to reflect on things that have happened to us and a chance to engage with the world in ways that transcend time and gender and all sorts of things.” – Kim Edwards

 

Born on this date in 1959, Edwards is the author of the bestselling novels The Memory Keeper's Daughter, now translated into 38 languages, and The Lake of Dreams, and the short story collection The Secrets of a Fire King.   Her writing honors include the Whiting Award, the British Book Award, and USA Today's Book of the Year (for Memory Keeper’s Daughter).

 

A graduate of Colgate University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she has taught widely in the US and Asia and now makes her teaching home at the University of Kentucky.     

 

In her teaching, Edwards says she often reflects on people’s desire to share stories as one of the things “that make us human.”   “I don’t think we’ll ever lose the desire for people to tell stories or to hear stories or to be entrapped in a beautiful story,” she said.  "It’s simply a part of the human condition."

A Writer's Moment: 'Showing itself as a poem'

A Writer's Moment: 'Showing itself as a poem':   “I just discovered when I was, oh, 12 or 13, that I was very interested in language - and this showed itself as poetry. There was no looki...

'Showing itself as a poem'

 

“I just discovered when I was, oh, 12 or 13, that I was very interested in language - and this showed itself as poetry. There was no looking back.” – Edwin Morgan

 

Born in Scotland on April 27, 1920 Morgan was widely recognized as one of the foremost poets of the 20th century, honored in 1999 as the first “Scottish National Poet.”  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Morgan’s,                    

                                    My shadow

I woke to a wind swirling the curtains light and dark
and the birds twittering on the roofs, I lay cold
in the early light in my room high over London.
What fear was it that made the wind sound like a fire
so that I got up and looked out half-asleep
at the calm rows of street-lights fading far below?
Without fire
Only the wind blew.
But in the dream I woke from, you
came running through the traffic, tugging me, clinging
to my elbow, your eyes spoke
what I could not grasp --
Nothing, if you were here!

The wind of the early quiet
merges slowly now with a thousand rolling wheels.
The lights are out, the air is loud.
It is an ordinary January day.
My shadow, do you hear the streets?
Are you at my heels? Are you here?
And I throw back the sheets.

A Writer's Moment: It's what composes 'a stealth philosophy'

A Writer's Moment: It's what composes 'a stealth philosophy':   “Fantasy allows you to bend the world and the situation to more clearly focus on the moral aspects of what's happening. In fantasy you...

It's what composes 'a stealth philosophy'

 

“Fantasy allows you to bend the world and the situation to more clearly focus on the moral aspects of what's happening. In fantasy you can distill life down to the essence of your story. “ – Terry Goodkind 

 

Born in Omaha in 1948, Goodkind is best known for his epic Fantasy series The Sword of Truth and his  contemporary suspense novel The Law of Nines. The Sword of Truth series has been translated into 20 languages, selling over 25 million copies worldwide.

 

Initially a violin maker and marine and wildlife artist, Goodkind decided to try his hand at Fantasy writing in 1994.  The end result was Wizard’s First Rule, an immediate hit that changed his career trajectory.   Writing almost steadily from that point on, he produced 32 bestselling novels and one novella before his death in late 2020.  His final book, The Children of D’Hara, wrapping up his 6-book D’Hara series (the other 5 were released in 2019 and 2020), was published posthumously in 2021. 

 

Goodkind said Fantasy allowed him to better tell his stories and convey the human themes and emotions he desired to share. 

 

“I've always said Fantasy is sort of 'stealth philosophy',” he said shortly before his death.  “It allows you to say things that sound very dramatic and get away with it. If you had characters in modern fiction say the same things as they're driving down the street in an Oldsmobile, they'd sound ludicrous!”

A Writer's Moment: 'And then what happens?'

A Writer's Moment: 'And then what happens?':   “There's a village in my computer - friends, fans, readers, and colleagues. It's a populous, sometimes chaotic little burg always ...

'And then what happens?'

 

“There's a village in my computer - friends, fans, readers, and colleagues. It's a populous, sometimes chaotic little burg always bustling with news, gossip, opinions and potential excitement.” – Lisa Unger

 

Born in Connecticut on April 26, 1970 Unger spent her elementary school years in The Netherlands before returning to the U.S., and eventually moving to New York City where she worked in publishing for 10 years before diving into a full-time and award-winning writing career.   

 

Today she is an international bestselling author of 23 novels – primarily psychological thrillers – on the market in 26 languages, her most recent being Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six and The New Couple in 5B.

Also a successful essayist, Unger's writings have appeared in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and (with her narrating) on National Public Radio. Unger says she loves writing just to see where each story is going to take her.   

 

“I write for the same reason I read, to find out what's going to happen,” she said.  “I don't think of my characters as people I create, I think of them more as people I have met and whom I'm exploring on the page.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It creates a communal nature'

A Writer's Moment: 'It creates a communal nature':   “A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the com...

'It creates a communal nature'

 

“A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the theater audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time.  I find that thrilling.” – August Wilson

 

Born in Pittsburgh on April 27, 1945 Wilson wrote 20 plays, highlighted by the 10-play Pittsburgh (or Century) Cycle..  Each of the 10 plays is set in a different decade of the 20^th Century, depicting both comic and tragic aspects of the black experience.

 

Over his career, cut short by his death from liver cancer, he won 8 New York Drama Critics Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes (for Fences and The Piano Lesson) and a Broadway Tony Award, also for Fences, which then was made into an award-winning movie.

 

Wilson, who died in 2005, said his aim with The Century Cycle was to sketch the black experience and "raise consciousness through theater.”  He was fascinated by the power of theater as a medium to bring community together to bear witness to life.  

 

And, he added, “I think my plays offer white Americans a different way to look at black Americans.”

A Writer's Moment: 'That makes you think'

A Writer's Moment: 'That makes you think':   “The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.” – Harper Lee   Born in Alabama on this date...

'That makes you think'

 

“The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.” – Harper Lee

 

Born in Alabama on this date in 1926, Nelle Harper Lee became one of America’s most acclaimed novelists even though she wrote just two books.  But, of course, the first of those was To Kill a Mockingbird.  Published in 1960 it achieved immediate success, rocketing to the top of most bestseller lists and winning the 1961 Pulitzer Prize. That singular achievement led to her being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007.

 

Lee also was feted for assisting Truman Capote (the model for her character Dill in Mockingbird) in his research for his 1966 masterpiece In Cold Blood.   Between them, Lee and Capote created a new kind of journalistic reporting, obtaining “notes” from a primary source without actually writing them down.  Both were able to remember things in minute detail, and they would spend hours after interviewing sessions re-creating those interviews.  Their skill with the technique led to sources to “opening up” in ways they might otherwise have not wanted to do.

 

Lee lived her last 50 years as a recluse.  Until her death in 2016, she granted almost no requests for interviews or public appearances.  And with the exception of a few short essays, she published nothing further until 2015 when her so-called “prequel” to Mockingbird – Go Set A Watchman – came out.   Mockingbird’s universal acceptance had seemed to cause her to freeze up when it came to further writing.

 

“I never expected any sort of success with ‘Mockingbird’ … I just sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement,” she once said.  “I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful (writing) death I'd expected.”

A Writer's Moment: 'These are our tools of thought'

A Writer's Moment: 'These are our tools of thought':   “I think that novels are tools of thought. They are moral philosophy with the theory left out, with just the examples of the moral situati...

'These are our tools of thought'

 

“I think that novels are tools of thought. They are moral philosophy with the theory left out, with just the examples of the moral situations left standing.” – Jill Paton Walsh

 

Paton Walsh was the writing name of Gillian Bliss, born in England in April of 1937.  A novelist and children's book writer, she was best known for her novel Knowledge of Angels, nominated for the Booker Prize, and for the Peter Wimsey–Harriet Vane mysteries that either completed or continued the work of renowned British crime writer and poet Dorothy Sayers.

 

Paton Walsh, who died in 2020, also earned considerable acclaim for her series featuring college nurse and part-time detective Imogine Quy, set at the fictional St. Agatha College in Cambridge, and for her two-dozen highly successful children's and young adult titles, including the much honored A Chance Child and Grace.

 

"There is nothing more important than writing well for the young,” she once noted, “especially if literature is to have a continuance."

A Writer's Moment: 'It begins in childhood'

A Writer's Moment: 'It begins in childhood':   “I believe that poetry begins in childhood and that a poet who can remember his own childhood exactly can, and should, communicate to chil...

'It begins in childhood'

 

“I believe that poetry begins in childhood and that a poet who can remember his own childhood exactly can, and should, communicate to children.” – William Jay Smith

 

Born in Louisiana in April 1918, Smith was the U.S. Poet Laureate from 1968-70, and Poet-in-Residence at Williams College for many years.   The author of more than 50 books of poetry for adults and children, including the multiple award-winning children’s book Laughing Time, he was twice honored as a finalist for the National Book Award.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Smith’s,

                                    The World Below The Window

The geraniums I left last night on the windowsill,
To the best of my knowledge now, are out there still,
And will be there as long as I think they will.

And will be there as long as I think that I
Can throw the window open on the sky,
A touch of geranium pink in the tail of my eye;

As long as I think I see, past leaves green-growing,
Barges moving down a river, water flowing,
Fulfillment in the thought of thought outgoing,

Fulfillment in the sight of sight replying,
Of sound in the sound of small birds southward flying,
In life life-giving, and in death undying.

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Somebody's daydream'

A Writer's Moment: 'Somebody's daydream':   “Treat your life like something to be sculpted.”  – Larry Niven   Born in Los Angeles in April of 1938, Laurence van Cott Niven has be...

'Somebody's daydream'

 

“Treat your life like something to be sculpted.” – Larry Niven

 

Born in Los Angeles in April of 1938, Laurence van Cott Niven has been a full-time writer since the early 1960s, starting with a well-received short story “The Coldest Place.”   He’s built a reputation as the world’s leading “Hard Sci-Fi” writer, especially for his worldwide bestselling series Ringworld, winner of the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards.   Not welded to one genre, Niven also is known for including elements of Detective Fiction and Adventure into his stories.  

 

Niven’s is credited with “creating” several alien species, one of the best-known being The Kzin, featured in a series of 15 books collectively called “The Man-Kzin Wars.”

 

The author of 54 novels (the most recent being Starborn & Godsons), he’s also written several screenplays and television scripts, and dozens of short stories, novellas and comic book stories.  Legendary Sci-Fi writer Arthur C Clarke called Niven his favorite author – a key accolade in its own right.

 

“In the world of words, the imagination is one of the forces of nature,” Niven said.  “Everything starts as somebody’s daydream.”

A Writer's Moment: What first must burn inside

A Writer's Moment: What first must burn inside:   “I'm just going to write because I cannot help it.” – Charlotte Bronte   Born in England on this date in 1816, Bronte lived to ju...

What first must burn inside

 

“I'm just going to write because I cannot help it.” – Charlotte Bronte

 

Born in England on this date in 1816, Bronte lived to just age 39 before dying of typhus during pregnancy.  The oldest of 3 Bronte sisters who survived into adulthood (2 others died of tuberculosis), she and her surviving sisters Emily and Anne each wrote novels that are considered classics of English literature. 

Her writing career formally began when she, Emily and Anne co-published a book of poetry under the pseudonym Bell – Charlotte as Currer; Emily as Ellis; and Anne as Acton.  Their poems did not succeed but the three women’s subsequent novels – Jane Eyre from Charlotte; Wuthering Heights from Emily; and Agnes Grey from Anne – were wildly successful and led to their revealing their real names to the writing world.   With an innovative style that combined naturalism with gothic melodrama, Charlotte’s writing especially plowed new ground.

Her remarkable lyrical style gave us such statements as “The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter - often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter - in the eye.”  And “The human heart has hidden treasures, in secret kept, in silence sealed; the thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, whose charms were broken if revealed.”

“What you want to ignite in others,” she said of her hopes as a writer, “must first burn inside yourself.” 

A Writer's Moment: 'Fighting through life's travails'

A Writer's Moment: 'Fighting through life's travails':   “To throw oneself to the side of the oppressed is the only dignified thing to do in life.” – Edwin Markham Born in Oregon on this date ...

'Fighting through life's travails'

 

“To throw oneself to the side of the oppressed is the only dignified thing to do in life.” – Edwin Markham

Born in Oregon on this date in 1852, Markham grew up in a broken home, worked the family farm as a child, was mostly self-educated, and against the wishes of his family (he was youngest of 10 children) decided to go to college and study literature.

 

After earning degrees in The Classics and teaching literature for several years, Markham fell in love with poetry and began writing full time in his late 40s, the start of a 40-year career.  His two most famous poems are "The Man with the Hoe," inspired by the painting by the artist Jean-Francois Millet, and "Lincoln, the Man of the People," read at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial.  The author of 7 poetry collections, he was named Poet Laureate of Oregon in the 1930s when he also published his highly regarded Eighty Poems at Eighty. 

 

Shortly before his death in 1940, he was named as the first recipient of the American Academy of Poets Award for his “contributions to American literature and impact on the poetic landscape.”

 

A prolific letter writer and book collector, Markham amassed more than 15,000 books.  He bequeathed them and his personal papers and letters, including years of correspondence with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ambrose Bierce, and fellow poets Carl Sandburg and Amy Lowell, to tiny Wagner College in New York City.  

 

“Great it is to believe in the dream as we stand in youth by the starry stream," he wrote, "but a greater thing is to fight life through and say at the end, the dream is true!”

A Writer's Moment: 'Having a genuine adventure'

A Writer's Moment: 'Having a genuine adventure':   “I have two parents who are brilliant storytellers. The art of developing a story and nurturing a story was present in my household from t...

'Having a genuine adventure'

 

“I have two parents who are brilliant storytellers. The art of developing a story and nurturing a story was present in my household from the day I was born.” – Robert Kurson 

Born on April 18, 1963 Kurson wrote Shadow Divers, the blockbuster bestselling true story of two Americans who discover a World War II German U-boat sunk 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey.  Shadow Divers spent 24 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list and was awarded an American Booksellers Association’s "Book of the Year Award."

 

A one-time lawyer with a degree from Harvard Law School, Kurson said he always thought writing would be his real profession and first decided to give it a try at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he wrote both sports stories and features. 

 

A self-proclaimed “adventure seeker,” Kurson also wrote Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship, a gripping account of the search for the wreck of the 17th-century pirate ship Golden Fleece.

 

“I think that pirates represent every person's ability to get up and leave their current daily situation and go on an adventure, and maybe to see things and do things they've never done before or even dreamed of doing," Kurson said.   “It's never too late in life to have a genuine adventure.”

A Writer's Moment: 'How you fortify your inner life'

A Writer's Moment: 'How you fortify your inner life':   ‘If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.’ – Seamus Heaney   Born in Northern Ireland on...

'How you fortify your inner life'

 

‘If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.’ – Seamus Heaney

 

Born in Northern Ireland on April 13, 1939 Heaney is widely recognized as one of the major poets of the 20th Century.  He authored more than two-dozen volumes of poetry and criticism, 2 plays and numerous translations and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995.  

 

A 12-volume collection of his poems titled The Poems of Seamus Heaney, encompassing all the poems Heaney published in his lifetime as well as some that appeared after his death in 2013 – was released in 2025. For Saturday’s Poem, here is Heaney’s,  

                                                              Follower

My father worked with a horse-plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horse strained at his clicking tongue.

An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright steel-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck

Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.

I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.

I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.

A Writer's Moment: 'Stimulating the urge to write'

A Writer's Moment: 'That urge to write':   “No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write...

'That helpless urge to write'

 

“No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.” –  Cynthia Ozick

  

Born in New York City on April 17, 1928, Ozick has written fiction and a wide range of nonfiction, including politics, history, literary criticism, and The Holocaust.  Ozick’s lyrical fiction style has earned such accolades as “The greatest living American writer” (from several of her contemporaries), and the title “The Emily Dickinson of The Bronx.”  And her essay style has been called everything from “uncompromising” to “biting” to “brilliant.”  

 

She has authored 7 novels, 8 short-story collections (her short stories have won multiple O. Henry Award first prizes), and 10 books of essays.  Still going strong on the eve of her 98^th birthday, she released In a Yellow Wood: Selected Stories and Essays in 2025.

 

 Recipient of a National Jewish Book Council Award for Lifetime a=Achievement, she also was a finalist for the National Book Award (for her Puttermesser Papers), won both the PEN/Nabokov and PEN/Malamud Awards, and earned the Presidential Medal for the Humanities.  Her works have been translated into 17 languages.   

 

“In an essay, you have the outcome in your pocket before you set out on your journey, and very rarely do you make an intellectual or psychological discovery,” she said.  “But when you write fiction, you don't know where you are going - sometimes down to the last paragraph.  That is the pleasure of it."

A Writer's Moment: 'Your topic? It's the whole world'

A Writer's Moment: 'Your topic? It's the whole world':   “Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rath...

'Your topic? It's the whole world'

 

“Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.” – Paul Theroux

 

Born in Medford, Mass., in April of 1941, Theroux has become both an accomplished novelist AND travel writer.  His best-known works are The Great Railway Bazaar and The Mosquito Coast, adapted into both a popular movie and Apple TV series.   

 

Winner of the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Mosquito Coast, he also earned the Royal Geographic Society’s Patron Medal (in 2015) and the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel (for Picture Palace) in 1978.  And, his novels Saint Jack, Half-Moon Street and The Chinese Box have been adapted into films.  The prolific Theroux has authored some 80 books, including a 2024 novel Burma Sahib and a 2025 collection, The Vanishing Point: Stories.

 

To Theroux, the whole world is a book topic.  “Everything is fiction,” he said.  “You only have your own life to work with in the way that a biographer only has the letters and journals to work with.”  And, as for his travel writing: “The job of the travel writer is to go far and wide . . .make voluminous notes . . . and tell the truth.”

A Writer's Moment: Giving ideas 'emotional reality'

A Writer's Moment: Giving ideas 'emotional reality':   “Fiction allows you to embody certain ideas and give them an emotional reality. The characters allow you to get close viscerally to an ide...

Giving ideas 'emotional reality'

 

“Fiction allows you to embody certain ideas and give them an emotional reality. The characters allow you to get close viscerally to an idea.” –  Anne Michaels

 

Born in Toronto on this date in 1958, Michaels is a poet, novelist and teacher whose numerous writing awards include a handful for her both her book of poetry The Weight of Oranges and her novel Fugitive Pieces.  The latter not only earned a Books in Canada First Novel Award, but also the Trillium Book Award, the Orange Prize for Fiction, and the Guardian Fiction Prize.  

When she's not writing, she also enjoys composing – particularly musical scores for theater.  But, it's fiction that Michaels most enjoys.

 

“It's a fantastic privilege to spend three or four hundred pages with a reader,” she said.  “You have time to go into certain questions that are painful or difficult or complicated. That's one thing that appeals to me very much about the novel form.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The ultimate job' for good writers

A Writer's Moment: 'The ultimate job' for good writers:   “Good writers don’t moralize, nor do they preach, but they do create longing for the true and the beautiful. ” – Eudora Welty   Born i...

'The ultimate job' for good writers

 

“Good writers don’t moralize, nor do they preach, but they do create longing for the true and the beautiful.” – Eudora Welty

 

Born in Jackson, Miss., on this date in 1909, Welty spent most of her life in and wrote about the American South, sharing a love of the region and its unique communities and bringing its stories to life for the world to see.  

 

Primarily a writer of short stories and honored in 1992 for her lifetime contributions to the genre, she also penned one of the all-time best American novels – the 1973 Pulitzer Prize winner, The Optimist’s Daughter.  And, she did a series of lectures released in the 1980s as a New York Times bestselling nonfiction book, One Writer's Beginnings, runner-up for the National Book Award.

 

“Place” was always vitally important to Welty.   “It is,” she said, “what makes fiction seem real, because with it come customs, feelings, and associations.   Place answers the questions: ‘What happened? Who's here? Who's coming?’”   And that, she said, is the job of the storyteller.  

 

“Long before I wrote stories, I ‘listened’ for stories,” she said.  “Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's what a poem can offer'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's what a poem can offer':   “We all need poetry. The moments in our lives that are characterized by language that has to do with necessity or the market, or just, you...

'It's what a poem can offer'

 

“We all need poetry. The moments in our lives that are characterized by language that has to do with necessity or the market, or just, you know, things that take us away from the big questions that we have, those are the things that I think urge us to think about what a poem can offer.” – Tracy K. Smith

 

Smith, who was born in Massachusetts on April 16, 1972, started writing poetry as a 5^th grader and became our nation’s 22^nd Poet Laureate (2017-19) and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her poems Life On Mars.   For Saturday’s Poem here is Smith’s,

 

                                                            The Good Life

When some people talk about money
They speak as if it were a mysterious lover
Who went out to buy milk and never
Came back, and it makes me nostalgic
For the years I lived on coffee and bread,
Hungry all the time, walking to work on payday
Like a woman journeying for water
From a village without a well, then living
One or two nights like everyone else
On roast chicken and red wine.

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Driven to communicate'

A Writer's Moment: 'Driven to communicate': A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate . . . to share . . . to be understood." ...

'Driven to communicate'

A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate . . . to share . . . to be understood." -  Leo Rosten

Born on April 10, 1908, Rosten was a novelist, scriptwriter and humorist who also had a deep interest in the relationship of politics and the media and the intricacies of their connections.  

 

An immigrant from Russia who grew up in New York City, he worked his way through school, earning a doctorate degree from the University of Chicago.   After starting his career as an economist while  simultaneously writing stories for The New Yorker and Look magazines, he took on a series of government information jobs during WWII and wrote the first of his screenplays, The Conspirators.  From 1944 to 1987, the year of his death, he wrote more than three dozen books, numerous feature stories and essays, and was a much sought-after speaker.

 

His quotes often were shared, including this one (a version of which is often mis-attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson):  

 

"The purpose of life . . . is to be useful; to be honorable . . . to be compassionate . . . to matter; to have it make some difference that you have lived."