Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 14
August 19, 2025
'Avoiding labels, sharing life's moments'
Writers never feelcomfortable having labels attached to them, however accurate they are. –Jonathan Coe
Born in England on this date in 1961,Coe has spent most of his career writing satirical novels aboutpolitics. That being said, his current work is 2024’s shadowy andhilarious “whodunit” The Proof of My Innocence. He’s also a terrific biographer andhis nonfiction book Humphrey Bogart: Take It And Like It isone of the best written about the late actor.
Besides writing 15 books, Coe hashad an ongoing career in music, playing keyboards in the band The Peer Groupand writing a number of songs for that band and others. Andhe’s collaborated on a wide range of songs and continues to toy with “just focusing on music, which is why I can’t decide what I really want tobe,” although writing continues to lead the way.
“I have trouble keeping things outof books, which is why I don't write short stories. They just seemto turn into novels.”
August 18, 2025
A Writer's Moment: 'They're a place where you live'
'A place where you live'
“I think of novels as houses. Youlive in them over the course of a long period, both as a reader and as awriter.” – Nicole Krauss
Born in New York City on this datein 1974, Krauss is perhaps best known for her novels Man Walks Into aRoom and The History of Love, although her short fiction hasalso been widely published in everything from The New Yorker to BestAmerican Short Stories. Hermost recent book is the short story collection How To Be A Man.
A writer since childhood, she said “Myfirst opus was a book of poems put down in a spiral notebook at five or six,handsomely accompanied by crayon illustrations.”
Krauss “officially” started writing in her teens and won several undergraduate prizes for her poetry and the Dean'sAward for academic achievement while studying at Stanford. She hadher first novel published in 2001 and now has 4 novels (2 adapted into film) that have been translated into 35 languages.
“What interests me in writing anovel,” she said, “is taking really remote voices, characters, and stories andbeginning to create some kind of web.”
'They're a place where you live'
“I think of novels as houses. Youlive in them over the course of a long period, both as a reader and as awriter.” – Nicole Krauss
Born in New York City on this datein 1974, Krauss is perhaps best known for her novels Man Walks Into aRoom and The History of Love, although her short fiction hasalso been widely published in everything from The New Yorker to BestAmerican Short Stories. Hermost recent book is the short story collection How To Be A Man.
A writer since childhood, she said “Myfirst opus was a book of poems put down in a spiral notebook at five or six,handsomely accompanied by crayon illustrations.”
Krauss “officially” started writing in her teens and won several undergraduate prizes for her poetry and the Dean'sAward for academic achievement while studying at Stanford. She hadher first novel published in 2001 and now has 4 novels (2 adapted into film) that have been translated into 35 languages.
“What interests me in writing anovel,” she said, “is taking really remote voices, characters, and stories andbeginning to create some kind of web.”
August 16, 2025
A Writer's Moment: Droll verse, lasting impact
Droll verse, lasting impact
“If you don't want to work you haveto work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work” –Ogden Nash
Born on Aug. 20, 1902 Nash was knownfor his light comic verse, and at the time of his death in 1971 The New YorkTimes said his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes madehim the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry.” Nash wrote over 500 poems –the best published in 14 volumes between 1931 and 1972. ForSaturday’s Poem, here is Nash’s,
Goodyfor Our Side and Your Side Too
Foreignersare people somewhere else,
Natives are people at home;
If the place you’re at
Is your habitat,
You’re a foreigner, say in Rome.
But the scales of Justice balance true,
And tit leads into tat,
So the man who’s at home
When he stays in Rome
Is abroad when he’s where you’re at.
Whenwe leave the limits of the land in which
Our birth certificates sat us,
It does not mean
Just a change of scene,
But also a change of status.
The Frenchman with his fetching beard,
The Scot with his kilt and sporran,
One moment he
May a native be,
And the next may find him foreign.
There’smany a difference quickly found
Between the different races,
But the only essential
Differential
Is living different places.
Yet such is the pride of prideful man,
From Austrians to Australians,
That wherever he is,
He regards as his,
And the natives there, as aliens.
Oh,I’ll be friends if you’ll be friends,
The foreigner tells the native,
And we’ll work together for our common ends
Like a preposition and a dative.
If our common ends seem mostly mine,
Why not, you ignorant foreigner?
And the native replies
Contrariwise;
And hence, my dears, the coroner.
Somind your manners when a native, please,
And doubly when you visit
And between us all
A rapport may fall
Ecstatically exquisite.
One simple thought, if you have it pat,
Will eliminate the coroner:
You may be a native in your habitat,
But to foreigners you’re just a foreigner.
August 15, 2025
A Writer's Moment: 'Bearing witness to life'
'Bearing witness to life'
“Literature speaks with everyone individually- it is personal property that stays inside our heads. And nothing speaks to usas forcefully as a book, which expects nothing in return other than that wethink and feel.” – Herta Müller
Born in Romania on Aug. 17, 1953 Müller is a novelist,poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. Her works have been translated intomore than 20 languages.
Many of Müller's writings address an individual's vulnerability underoppression and persecution, rooted in her own experiences as one of Romania'sGerman-speaking ethnic minority under the brutal dictator Ceaușescu. Perhapsbest-known among her many novels are The Passport and TheHunger Angel, along with several best-selling books of poetry and anaward-winning book of essays, Hunger and Silk.
“I write in order to bear witness to life,” she said. “What can't besaid can be written. Because writing is a silent act, a labor from the head tothe hand.”
August 14, 2025
A Writer's Moment: 'Life itself is a writer's lover'
'Life itself is a writer's lover'
“Life can't defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death.” – Edna Ferber
Born in Kalamazoo, MI on Aug. 15, 1885 Ferber was a novelist, short story writer and playwright, who won a four Pulitzer Prizes – for So Big, Show Boat, Cimarron and Giant, the latter three also made into award-winning movies. And Show Boat was adapted for the stage as a Broadway musical while Cimarron won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Ferber's novels generally featured strong female protagonists, along with a rich and diverse collection of supporting characters. She usually highlighted at least one strong secondary character who faced discrimination ethnically or for other reasons, demonstrating her belief that people are people and that the not-so-pretty people have the best character.
“I like to look at all sides of people and be open to any idea,” she said. “A closed mind is a dying mind.”
