A Writer's Moment: 'It's all about relationsships'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's all about relationsships':   “Writing, basically breaks down to relationships between people and that is what you write about.” – Leon Uris Born this day in 1924,...

'It's all about relationsships'

 

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

Born this day in 1924, Uris started reading at age 3, writing by 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 service) that he started his successful career, first writing for newspapers and then doing short stories before writing Battle Cry in 1951.  Known for his historical fiction and the deep research that went into his novels, he wrote 20 novels and many nonfiction works.

 

 

Leon Uris

Both Exodus and Trinity (the first work that really helped me understand what was going on in Northern Ireland) were mega-bestsellers, and many, many more were on the New York Times Bestsellers List.   Also a screenwriter, he had three of his books – Battle Cry, Exodus and The Haj – made into successful movies.

Uris wrote continuously for 50 years until he was struck down by kidney failure in 2003.  He said he always was proud that the work he wrote in 1950 was just as much read as that written 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.”  

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Excavating Experiences'

A Writer's Moment: 'Excavating Experiences':   “ The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.” – James Baldwin Writer and playwright...

'Excavating Experiences'

 

“The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.” – James Baldwin

Writer and playwright James Baldwin, born in Harlem, NY, on this date in 1924, started writing in elementary school and ultimately became one of the 20th century's greatest writers.  Baldwin broke new literary ground with the exploration of racial and social issues in his many works, led by his semi-autobiographical novels Go Tell It on the Mountain and Notes of a Native Son.

Beyond his many successful novels, he was feted for his ongoing series of essays on the Black experience in America, which he wrote right up until his death in 1987. Some of his essays – like The Fire Next Time and No Name in the Street – are book-length.  In 2016, his unfinished final essay, Remember This House, was expanded and adapted for the Academy Award-nominated documentary film I Am Not Your Negro.         

                   

Baldwin’s passion for writing grew out of an equally devout passion as a reader, something he started at age 3.  By the time he was in high school, he was working on the school magazine and had numerous poems, short stories and plays published there, often illustrated with photos by classmate and future Hall-of-Fame photographer Richard Avedon.

In his essay for the Los Angeles Times, Scott Timberg wrote of Baldwin’s continuing impact on all writers and writing: "… Baldwin is not just a writer for the ages,” he said,  “but a scribe whose work — as squarely as George Orwell’s — speaks directly to ours."

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Like going on a journey'

A Writer's Moment: 'Like going on a journey':   “I have likened writing a novel to going on a journey, with some notion of the destination I will arrive at, but not the whole picture - ...

'Like going on a journey'

 

“I have likened writing a novel to going on a journey, with some notion of the destination I will arrive at, but not the whole picture - which emerges gradually as a series of revelations, as the journey goes along.” –  Rose Tremain

English author Tremain, born in August of 1943, is a historical novelist who approaches her subjects "from unexpected angles, concentrating her attention on unglamorous outsiders."   First published in the 1960s, she has won most of historical fiction’s major awards.  In 1988, she also began to share her talents with budding writers as a professor of creative writing at the University of East Anglia, a post she held for many years.  And in 2020 she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her services to writing.

 

  Her writing also earned her the prestigious Whitbread Prize for Best Novel (Music and Silence) in 1999; the Orange Prize, given to Britain’s top female writer, for The Road Home in 2008; and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction for Merivel: A Man of His Time in 2013.              

Tremain said even though her work is “historical,” there’s a bit of herself in each of her characters, male and female, and she always goes into her writing with the belief that the day’s output is waiting to be discovered.  “I'm always amazed by writers who tell me they plan everything at the beginning,” she said.   “I feel their writing days must be very bland.” 

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: Keeping Them Digging

A Writer's Moment: Keeping Them Digging:   “In the end, does it really matter if newspapers physically disappear?   Probably not:   the world is always changing. ...