Celebrating Freedom of Expression

 “The First Amendment has the same role in my life as a citizen and a writer as the sun has in our ecosystem.” – Michael Chabon

On this Independence Day weekend, we who write can and should be thankful for our right as Americans to share free expression – truly among the few writers in the world who have that right protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution.   

 

Writing seems to be such a natural thing, but the majority of the world’s peoples do not freely have that right without restrictions, governmental interference, or outright censorship.

Thus, as we conclude this 4^th of July weekend (our 245^th birthday), not only can we celebrate our freedom as a nation, but also our freedom of expression and of the press.  We are, indeed, blessed to have such rights.

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'So Others Could See It, Too'

A Writer's Moment: 'So Others Could See It, Too':   “I wanted to communicate what I had seen, so that others could see it, too.” –   Laurie Lee   Born in 1914, Laurence Edward Alan &qu...

'So Others Could See It, Too'

 “I wanted to communicate what I had seen, so that others could see it, too.” –  Laurie Lee

 

Born in 1914, Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee was an English poet, novelist and screenwriter, and who loved poetry best.  While several of his poems written in the early 1940s reflect the atmosphere of World War II, he also wrote many that captured the beauty of the English countryside and seasons.  For Saturday’s Poem here is Lee's, 

 

 

April Rise

 

If ever I saw blessing in the air
I see it now in this still early day
Where lemon-green the vaporous morning drips
Wet sunlight on the powder of my eye.

Blown bubble-film of blue, the sky wraps round
Weeds of warm light whose every root and rod
Splutters with soapy green, and all the world
Sweats with the bead of summer in its bud.

If ever I heard blessing it is there
Where birds in trees that shoals and shadows are
Splash with their hidden wings and drops of sound
Break on my ears their crests of throbbing air.

Pure in the haze the emerald sun dilates,
The lips of sparrows milk the mossy stones,
While white as water by the lake a girl
Swims her green hand among the gathered swans.

Now, as the almond burns its smoking wick,
Dropping small flames to light the candled grass;
Now, as my low blood scales its second chance,
If ever world were blessed, now it is.

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'It's The Judge Of Us'

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

'It's The Judge Of Us'

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

Gordon, born in 1895, was a notable American novelist, literary critic and friend of nearly every famous writer of the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s.   A great writer herself, she was the recipient of a 1932 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 1934 O.Henry Award for her short story Old Red.   In 1963 she republished the story as the lead work for a book called Old Red and Other Stories, also an award winner.

A “free spirit” (her term for herself), she and husband Alan Tate often hosted other major writers in their Kentucky home where “writing was the talk from dawn ‘til dark.”  F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, T.S. Eliot and Robert Penn Warren were frequent visitors, but the most important one for her was Ford Madox Ford, who she considered her mentor.  It was Ford who counseled and prodded her into completing her first novel Penhally, which was influential in gaining her the prestigious Guggenheim.

She went on to write 9 more novels and dozens more short stories.  Themes for her novels and stories were often autobiographical and drawn from the South, giving the rest of the world an in-depth look at the region.   

 

The Collected Stories of Caroline Gordon, published at the time of her death in 1981, was lauded by Warren, who wrote the introduction. “Caroline Gordon,” he said,  “belongs to the group of Southern women writers – Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor and Katherine Anne Porter – who have been enriching our literature uniquely in this century.” 

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

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Creativity Needs To Be Applied'

A Writer's Moment: 'Creativity Needs To Be Applied': “Write often.   I try to sit down and write at least 3 times a day, even if only for a few sentences at a time.   Creativity is worthless if...

'Creativity Needs To Be Applied'

“Write often.  I try to sit down and write at least 3 times a day, even if only for a few sentences at a time.   Creativity is worthless if you don’t take the time to apply it.”   – Roger Zelazny

When writers like George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones) are asked who influenced them, more often than not they’ll say Roger Zelazny.  Born in Ohio in 1937, Zelazny was a fantasy and science fiction writer extraordinaire.  He wrote dozens and dozens of short stories and novels, including the mega-bestseller Lord of Light.  In his relatively short life (he died at age 58 in Santa Fe, NM where Martin makes his home) he was nominated for three dozen major writing awards and won 14. 

 

Roger Zelazny

 

“Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant – you just don't know which," he once said.  "You can play it safe and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place.  Trust your demon.”  

 

 

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