A Writer's Moment: 'The news that stays'

A Writer's Moment: 'The news that stays':   “If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays. Literature is news that stays news.” – Ezra Pound   Born in N...

'The news that stays'

 

“If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays. Literature is news that stays news.” – Ezra Pound

 

Born in New York City on Oct. 30, 1885 Pound spent most of his adult life in Great Britain and is considered the poet most responsible for defining and promoting the so-called “modernist poetry movement.”  He also is noted for opening an exchange of work and ideas between British and American writers and for his support of writers like W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, William Hemingway and T.S. Elliot.

 

 “Good writers,” he said, “are those who keep the language efficient . . . accurate . . . . (and) clear.”  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Pound’s,

 

The Sea of Glass

I looked and saw a sea
                               roofed over with rainbows,
In the midst of each
                               two lovers met and departed;
Then the sky was full of faces
                               with gold glories behind them.

 

A Writer's Moment: Answering the question: 'Why not me?'

A Writer's Moment: Answering the question: 'Why not me?': “I do seem to have a lot of family secrets in my novels. I guess I'm one of those writers who is often writing about the same sort of th...

Answering the question: 'Why not me?'

“I do seem to have a lot of family secrets in my novels. I guess I'm one of those writers who is often writing about the same sort of themes but taking different angles on them.” – Nancy Werlin

 

Born in Salem, Massachusetts on this date in 1961, Werlin was nominated for a National Book Award for The Rules of Survival and won an Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel for The Killer's Cousin.  She also was an Edgar finalist for Locked Inside. A graduate of Yale, she has written a dozen Young Adult novels, including New York Times-bestselling fantasy Impossible.  Her newest book is Healer and Witch.

 

Werlin started reading at age 3, reading up to 10 books a week by 3^rd grade.  She said she decided to be a writer in 4^th grade and while creative writing is a central part of her life, she also works as a technical writer for a software company and says being employed gives her the financial freedom to take the time she needs on each creative writing project. 

 

“By the time I was ten, I knew I wanted to be a writer to create what I loved so much,” Werlin said.  "I just read all the time, and it occurred to me that somebody had to write these things – and why shouldn't it be me?"

A Writer's Moment: 'Focus and follow through'

A Writer's Moment: 'Focus and follow through':   “If TV's getting in your way of writing a book, then you don't want to write a book bad enough.” – Andrea Seigel   Born in Ana...

'Focus and follow through'

 

“If TV's getting in your way of writing a book, then you don't want to write a book bad enough.” – Andrea Seigel

 

Born in Anaheim, CA on this date in 1979, Young Adult novelist Seigel grew up in California and then did her writing education on the East Coast (at Brown and Bennington).  She says she’s a great example of how an introvert can be successful in an extrovert’s world.  

 

The author of four novels, she also has become a successful screenwriter (her most recent being 2022’s “The Silent Twins”), and two of her books – The Kid Table and Everybody Knows Your Name – also have been turned into films.  She said that while she studied writing in college, her love of books began as a young girl. 

"I'd go to the library so I could sit in a big, quiet room and listen to pages being turned," she said.  "There was a boring librarian who everyone in fifth grade hated. But I loved her because when she would read us stories in her soft voice, she'd turn my head into a snow globe."

A Writer's Moment: They're the 'packhorses of literature'

A Writer's Moment: They're the 'packhorses of literature':   “Nonfiction writers are the packhorses of literature. We're meant to carry the story. If we can make it up and down the mountain by a ...