Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 108

A Writer's Moment: 'Be willing to fail'

A Writer's Moment: 'Be willing to fail':   “I'm always terrified when I'm writing.” – Mary Karr Karr’s sentiment probably echoes all who take pen in ...

'Property of the imagination'

 

“TheEnglish language is nobody's special property. It is the property of theimagination: it is the property of the language itself.”– Derek Walcott

 

Born in Saint Lucian-Trinidad inJanuary of 1930, Walcott is the 1992 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and also has earned an ObieAward for his play Dream on Monkey Mountain; a MacArthur Foundation"genius" grant; a Royal Society of Literature Award; the Queen'sMedal for Poetry; and the T. S. Eliot Prize for his remarkable book of poetry WhiteEgrets.

 

“If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem," he said, "it's justgoing to be average.”  His are not.  For powerful and poignant reads, check out  “A City’s Death by Fire” or “A FarCry From Africa.”   For Saturday’s Poem, here is Walcott’s,

 

LoveAfter Love

 

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

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A Writer's Moment: 'Property of the imagination'

A Writer's Moment: 'Property of the imagination':   “The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of th...

A Writer's Moment: 'It's all about what you want to find out'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's all about what you want to find out':   “All writing is that structure of revelation. There's something you want to find out. If you know everything up front in the beginnin...

'It's all about what you want to find out'

 

“Allwriting is that structure of revelation. There's something you want to findout. If you know everything up front in the beginning, you really don't need toread further if there's nothing else to find out.” –Walter Mosley
Born on Jan. 12, 1952 Mosley is most widely recognized for his crime fiction.   He has written a series of best-sellinghistorical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a blackprivate investigator and World War II veteran living in the Watts neighborhoodof Los Angeles.  
Growing up in Los Angeles as an onlychild, he ascribes his writing imagination to "an emptiness in mychildhood that I filled up with fantasies."  It was after moving to New York City andtaking a course in writing at the City College of Harlem – inspired by AliceWalker’s classic novel The Color Purple– that he caught the writing bug. 
 He started writing at age 34 andsaid he has written every day since, His first published novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, was the basis fora 1995 movie starring Denzel Washington. Since then he has penned more than 40 books in a variety of categories,including mystery, science fiction, crime fiction, and non-fiction politics.His work has been translated into 21 languages and in 2023 he was honored by the Crime Writers Association with its Diamond Dagger Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Mosley cites many“inspirational storytellers” as role models, and the most important one, he said,was his father.   “My father always taught by tellingstories about his experiences. His lessons were about morality and art and whatinsects and birds and human beings had in common. He told me what it meant tobe a man and to be a Black man. He taught me about love and responsibility,about beauty, and how to make gumbo.”

A Writer's Moment: Meshing conflict, character . . . and science

A Writer's Moment: Meshing conflict, character . . . and science:   “Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.” – Diana Gabaldon ...

Meshing conflict, character . . . and science

 

“Conflict and character are theheart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.” – DianaGabaldon

 

Born in Williams, AZ on this date in1952, Gabaldon is best known for her Outlander series -- both novels andtelevision shows set in 1700s’ (and a bit in the mid-1900s’).   Her books merge multiple genres, featuringelements of historical fiction, romance, mystery, adventure, sciencefiction/fantasy, and science. 

 

A scientist first, Gabaldon is thefounding editor of Science Software Quarterly (in 1984 while employed atthe Center for Environmental Studies at Arizona State University).  During the mid-1980s, Gabaldon wrote softwarereviews and technical articles for computer publications before turning topopular-science articles and comic books. 

 

In 1988, she wrote Outlander and now has 9 books in the Outlander series.  She also has served as a producerfor the popular TV series and is working on a 10th installment. 

 

I met Gabaldon -- who told me her namerhymes with Bad to the Bone -- at a Historical Novel Society (HNS) meeting where we were both speaking about our writing.

 

     

She said her background in science has been a great assist to her fiction writing.   “People assume that science is avery cold sort of profession, whereas writing novels is a warm and fuzzyintuitive thing.  But in fact, they are not at all different.”

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A Writer's Moment: Writing ordinary to extraordinary

A Writer's Moment: Writing ordinary to extraordinary:   “Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the ...

Writing ordinary to extraordinary

 

“NowI think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about theordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.”– Philip Levine

Born onthis date in 1928, Levine (who died in 2015) was best known forhis poems about working-class Detroit.  APulitzer Prize winner and onetime U.S. Poet Laureate, Levine also taught formore than 30 years in the English department at California State University,Fresno.  

 

The son of autoworkers, Levineworked in an auto plant himself while taking night classes at Wayne State University.  Eventually, he gravitated to writing poetry,focusing on working class neighborhoods like the one he had grown up in. 

 

Levine said memory was fundamentalto crafting his poems and the way most of his poems got started.

 

“Meet some people who care aboutpoetry the way you do,” Levine said to aspiring poets.  “First, you'll have that readership.  Then keep going until you know you're doingwork that's worthy and see what happens.”

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A Writer's Moment: Reaching 'ordinary' readers

A Writer's Moment: Reaching 'ordinary' readers:   “My favorite book is the last one printed, which is always better than those that were published earlier.” – Stephen A...