'Hope' that memory is never lost

 

“We use the word 'hope' perhaps more often than any other word in the vocabulary: 'I hope it's a nice day.' 'Hopefully, you're doing well.' 'So how are things going along? Good I hope.'  'Going to be good tomorrow? Hope so.'  Memory is valued, and I hope that we never lose memory.” – Studs Terkel 

 

Born in New York City on this date in 1912, Louis “Studs” Terkel was an author, historian, actor, and broadcaster who won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for his book on World War II titled The Good War.  He also wrote the terrific book Working, sharing his unbending optimism about life and the goodness of people, and for his oral histories.

 

Terkel studied as a lawyer but instead of entering the profession, he turned to acting and then broadcasting, starting his long-running career through the WPA's Federal Writing Program during the Depression.  Ultimately, in addition to his broadcasting and work on oral histories, he wrote 18 nonfiction books.

  

WFMT, the Chicago radio station which broadcast Terkel's long-running interview program, preserved 7,000 tape recordings of Terkel's interviews and histories.  After his death in 2008 at age 96, The Library of Congress announced a grant to digitally preserve and make available those recordings, which it called "a remarkably rich history of the ideas and perspectives of both common and influential people living in the second half of the 20th century." 

 

"For Studs, there was not a voice that should not be heard, a story that could not be told," said Gary T. Johnson, president of the Chicago Museum of History, the initial recipient of the recordings. "He believed that everyone had the right to be heard and had something important to say. He was there to listen, to chronicle, and to make sure their stories are remembered.

A Writer's Moment: Providing 'shape and meaning'

A Writer's Moment: Providing 'shape and meaning':   “Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, thing...

Providing 'shape and meaning'

 

“Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning.” – Katherine Anne Porter

 

Porter, born in Indian Creek, TX on this date in 1890, was a prize-winning journalist, essayist, short story writer and novelist.  Known for her penetrating insight, particularly in her short stories and essays, she wrote only one novel – but it was a good one.  Ship of Fools not only was a worldwide bestseller but also earned her the Pulitzer Prize, The National Book Award, and a box office hit movie. 

 

She also won the National Book Award for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, a hallmark of short story excellence.     Writing short stories may have come as second nature to Porter, since her father’s cousin was William Sydney Porter – known to posterity as O. Henry (and in whose name the annual best American short story award is given).  

 

Katherine’s journalism career began on the East Coast, then gravitated to Colorado where she was writing for the Rocky Mountain News when she almost died during the 1918 flu pandemic. When she was finally discharged from the hospital, she was frail and completely bald and when her hair finally grew back, it was white and remained that way for the rest of her life.  

 

Her life-and-death experience was reflected in a trilogy of novelettes led by the wonderful Pale Horse, Pale Rider.  That work earned her the 1940 Gold Medal for Literature from the Society of Libraries of New York University.  When she wasn’t writing professionally, she was corresponding with dozens of friends and fellow writers.  Collected and edited by her close friend Isabel Bayley, the Letters of Katherine Anne Porter shares 250 of the thousands of letters the prolific Porter wrote during her lifetime. 

 

 “Writing is a craft,” Porter said to beginning writers.  “Be respectful of words.  They mean something.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Getting intensely into the story'

A Writer's Moment: 'Getting intensely into the story':   “For me, being a writer was never a choice.  I was born one.  All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers. ...

'Getting intensely into the story'

 

“For me, being a writer was never a choice.  I was born one.  All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers.  I wrote on everything.  I didn’t do my homework so I could write.” – Laura Hillenbrand

 

Born in Fairfax, VA in May of 1967, Hillenbrand wrote massive bestselling stories about two amazing sports figures from the 1930s; one the great horse Seabiscuit, the other the great 1930s Olympian Louis Zamperini. 

 

The first story became the bestselling book and award-winning movie Seabiscuit.  The second, one of the most gripping reads of the past two decades and also a popular movie, was Unbroken.  The books have dominated bestseller lists in both hardback and paperback with combined sales (to date) of more than 15 million.

    

Hillenbrand’s own story is probably also worthy of a book as she wrote her bestsellers while experiencing debilitating pain and isolation.  Confined to her home for 20 years with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, she still pressed on to create these two remarkable works.   She says being confined while writing helped her “live” her stories more completely in her mind.

 

“I'm attracted to subjects who overcome tremendous suffering and learn to cope emotionally with it,” she said.  “I'm living someone else's life. I get very intensely into the story, into the interviews and the research. I'm experiencing things along with my subjects. I have a freedom I don't have in my physical life.”

 

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Each hour offers new opportunities'

A Writer's Moment: 'Each hour offers new opportunities':   “The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a ...

'Each hour offers new opportunities'

 

“The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life.  You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.“ – Arnold Bennett

 

Bennett was born in England in May of 1867 and was a newspaper editor who started writing a weekly column after being perplexed by the lack of good material from his other writers.  He quickly discovered he had a great knack for it and by 1900 was devoting all of his time to writing.

 

Besides his column, which eventually appeared in hundreds of newspapers, Bennett wrote 34 novels, 7 volumes of short stories, 13 plays, and a daily journal.  He also wrote for the cinema in the 1920s and was the most financially successful British author of his day.  His novel The Old Wives' Tale -- following the lives of two sisters from youth through old age -- is considered one of the 20^th century’s greatest works of English literature. 

 

Also a much sought-after reviewer, he was acclaimed as a “discoverer” of other great writers.  He unerringly picked out many of the most important writers of the next generation, including James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway.   And Bennett wrote two dozen nonfiction books, including 8 “self-help” books.  His popular How to Live on 24 Hours a Day is still a regular reference work in the self-help field.

 

“The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy and brooding,” he said, “is to go deliberately forth and try to lift with one's sympathy the gloom of somebody else.”