Writing In The Margins of History

“I always try to find a story in the margins of history, but I don't like to do too much that's improbable.” – Philip Kerr

A native of Scotland, Kerr  was best known for the "Bernie Gunther" series of historical thrillers set primarily in Germany during the 1930s, World War II and the Cold War.  He authored some 50 books, including several nonfiction works and a dozen children's books with the Children of the Lamp series, under the name P.B. Kerr.  

Born on this date in 1956 (he died in 2018), Kerr started writing in Middle school and really never stopped.  In the early 1990s he was honored as one of Britain’s “Best Young Writers,” and in 2009 he won both the “RBA International Prize for Crime Writing” (worth nearly $200 thousand in cash) and the British Crime Writers' Association's “Ellis Peters Historic Crime Writing Award.”

He resided near Wimbledon and was a frequent essay contributor to The Sunday Times and The Evening Standard, although it was his writing “about the recent historical past,” that was his forte'. 

Kerr had this to say about writing historical fiction:   

 

“History asks us to imagine ourselves in a period, but it's a very different situation when you're in that period and faced with those situations. The hardest thing is to write about people. First and foremost, you have to encounter their humanity. That is the only way you can make them live as characters on the page.”

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Breathe, Cry Out & Sing'

A Writer's Moment: 'Breathe, Cry Out & Sing':   “The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” – Anais Nin Born in France on this date in ...

'Breathe, Cry Out & Sing'

 

“The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” – Anais Nin

Born in France on this date in 1903, Nin gravitated to writing early and started keeping detailed journals at age 11.  She didn’t stop until more than 60 years later at the time of her death, and much of what she kept in them became fodder for her long and impressive writing career.

Over her lifetime she wrote everything from essays to novels, critical studies to short stories and, of course, her well-known and often controversial takes on erotica.  Nin's most important works, in the judgment of both herself and scholars, are those diaries and journals, which provide a deeply explorative insight into her personal life and relationships.   So far 16 volumes of her journals have been published. “My ideas,” she once said, “usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.”  And, of course, she wrote down daily about the life that she lived. 

Shortly before her 1977 death, she was asked what should be the motivating factor for someone seeking to make a life as a writer.  Her answer was simple:   “If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.”

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: Inspiration, Perspiration, Desperation'

A Writer's Moment: Inspiration, Perspiration, Desperation':   “I always say three things make a writer: inspiration, obviously; perspiration, doing the work; and desperation. I'm not really fit ...

A Writer's Moment: 'Things That Touch Your Soul'

A Writer's Moment: 'Things That Touch Your Soul':   “If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you&...

'Things That Touch Your Soul'

 

“If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soul.” – Roger McGough

McGough, born in 1937, grew up in Liverpool, home to another rather well-known group of lads who made their way in the performance industry under the name  of The Beatles.  In the 1960s, McGough started making a name in his own right with the publication of the best-selling poetry book The Mersey Sound.   Since then he’s led a highly successful writing career as a performance poet, children’s author and playwright.  A broadcaster, too, he hosts the BBC’s “Poetry Please” show and still makes his home in Liverpool. 

 

For Saturday’s Poem, here is McGough’s

 

Sleeping In

Our street is dead lazy
Especially in winter.
Some mornings you wake up
And it’s still lying there
Saying nothing.  Huddled
under its white counterpane.

But soon the lorries arrive
Like angry Mums,
Pull back the blankets
And send it shivering
Off to work.
 
 
Roger McGough
 

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Inspiration, Perspiration, Desperation'

 

“I always say three things make a writer: inspiration, obviously; perspiration, doing the work; and desperation. I'm not really fit for anything else, or to have a real job. That fear drives me. The pressure has always been self inflicted.” – Harlan Coben

If you like sports and you like murder mysteries then you can’t help but like the writing of Harlan Coben, who found a very interesting way to combine the two.

Born in New Jersey in 1962, Coben was an athlete at Amherst College when he decided in his senior year that what he really wanted to do was write murder mysteries.  So he did. 

His thriller Play Dead was published in 1990, followed by Miracle Cure in 1991. He then began writing a series of thrillers featuring a former basketball player turned sports agent, Myron Bolitar, who often finds himself investigating murders involving his clients.  In the 2015 Coben created the British crime drama television show The Five and the French-British crime drama Safe which premiered on Netflix in 2018.  That year he signed a 5-year deal to develop 14 of his books into original Netflix series or films.  Five have been done so far.

 

Harlan Coben

His stories are a great example of how ordinary people can (and usually do) play a key role in resolving a problem, and his style is one that lets his reader get right into the action.  He said he likes giving the reader everything they’ll need to figure out the mystery while still keeping them guessing with multiple plot twists.

“A good crime novelist – any good novelist for that matter – should … play with your perceptions while showing you everything in plain sight.”

 

 

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