A Writer's Moment: 'Everything is interesting'

A Writer's Moment: 'Everything is interesting':   “Whether you want to entertain or to provoke, to break hearts or reassure them, what you bring to your writing must consist of your longin...

'Everything is interesting'

 

“Whether you want to entertain or to provoke, to break hearts or reassure them, what you bring to your writing must consist of your longings and disappointments.” – Rafael Yglesias

Born in New York on this date in 1954, novelist and screenwriter Yglesias is perhaps best known for his book and screenplay Fearless, both multiple award winners and nominees.  A “sandwich” member in a family writers – the son of two and father of two – he also is married to a writer, the novelist Ann Packer.    

 

Literally a “born writer,” Yglesias wrote his first successful novel, Hide Fox, And After All in the 10^th grade, and his novel A Happy Marriage also won multiple awards.  His latest is The Wisdom of Perversity.   Among his many writing successes for the screen is his popular version of Les Miserables, featuring Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush and Uma Thurman.

 

Noted for creating complex characters, he said, “The most fun thing about being a writer is that everything is interesting.”

 

A Writer's Moment: A poem should 'Be'

A Writer's Moment: A poem should 'Be':   “What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists.”  – Archibald MacLeish   ...

A poem should 'Be'

 

“What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists.” – Archibald MacLeish

 

MacLeish, born in Glencoe, IL on May 7, 1892, has been called “One of the hundred most influential figures in librarianship during the 20th century.” As the 9^th U.S. Librarian of Congress – a post he held for 5 years – he was instrumental in establishing the U.S. Poet Laureate position, which he himself easily could have held, being the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.  He also won a Pulitzer for his Tony-winning Broadway play J.B. – a modern day re-telling of the Book of Job.

 

“Poetry,” he said, “is concerned with feelings; the ‘feel’ of the world.”   For Saturday’s Poem, here are lines from MacLeish’s,

 

Ars Poetica

A poem should be wordless as the flight of birds.

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea –

A poem should not mean
But be.

A Writer's Moment: Strive 'to be the talent'

A Writer's Moment: Strive 'to be the talent':   “People set newspapers on fire; they use them for wrapping fish. The Internet does not have that property. What I don't think we'v...

Strive 'to be the talent'

 

“People set newspapers on fire; they use them for wrapping fish. The Internet does not have that property. What I don't think we've gotten is that you can make things last longer than in print.” – Ezra Klein

 

 Born on this date in 1984, Klein is a reporter, blogger, political commentator and columnist for The New York Times, host of The Ezra Klein Show podcast, and co-founder the explanatory news site Vox Media.  

 

A native of California who studied journalism at UC-Santa Cruz, Klein is the son of a college professor and a professional artist and “grew up writing.”  The Washington Post’s first “pure” blogger, he was hired at age 25 and was one of the first bloggers to report from a national political convention.

 

Klein has won numerous awards for his political commentary and also for his thought-provoking book Why We’re Polarized.  

 

From his own experience, he offers this advice for beginning writers and podcasters: “Try to get the job that's most like the job you want, rather than the one that's more prestigious. Always try to be the talent.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Looking straight at the world'

A Writer's Moment: 'Looking straight at the world':   “Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer.” – Patricia Barker   ...