Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 147
April 25, 2023
A Writer's Moment: 'Writing - You, in a Partnership'
A Writer's Moment: 'Writing - You, in a Partnership': “Writing in form is a way of developing your thinking - your thinking along with the tradition. In a way, it's not you alone, it'...
'Writing - You, in a Partnership'
“Writingin form is a way of developing your thinking - your thinking along with thetradition. In a way, it's not you alone, it's you in a partnership.” — MarilynNelson
Born in April of 1946, poet, translator and children's book writer Nelson is the author or translatorof 12 books and three chapbooks. Professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut, she isthe founder and director of Soul Mountain Retreat, a retreat center for new oremerging writers, especially poets.
Born in Cleveland, the daughter ofone of the original Tuskegee Airmen, she was brought upliving on military bases, and began writing while in elementary school. She said she gravitated to poetry and neverlooked back, although readers of her kids’ books say they’re glad she continued in that genre, too. Afterearning a Ph.D. in English, she taught at Connecticut for many years and ultimately washonored with a 5-year stint as Connecticut's Poet Laureate.
Nelson’s poetry collections includethe terrific The Homeplace, which won the Anisfield-Wolf Award and wasthe first of three of her books to be finalists for the National Book Award. In 2012, the Poetry Society of America awarded her the Frost Medal “fordistinguished lifetime service to American poetry,” and in 2013, she waselected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Soft spoken and thoughtful in allshe says and does, Nelson said a person’s voice is as important in presenting apoem as are the words on paper.
“Manyperformance poets seem to believe that yelling a poem makes it comprehensible,”she said. “They are wrong.”
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A Writer's Moment: Having that 'stick-to-itist' factor
A Writer's Moment: Having that 'stick-to-itist' factor: “Somewhere along the line, I realized that I liked telling stories, and I decided that I would try writing. Ten years later, I finally go...
Having that 'stick-to-itist' factor
“Somewherealong the line, I realized that I liked telling stories, and I decided that Iwould try writing. Ten years later, I finally got a book published. It washard. I had no skills. I knew nothing about the business of getting published.So I had to keep working at it.” – Janet Evanovich
Born April 22,1943, Evanovich now has over two hundredmillion books in print worldwide and is translated into over 40 languages. After those initial struggles, she gainedfame and loyal readers with her contemporary mysteries featuring StephaniePlum, a former lingerie buyer from Trenton, NJ, who becomes a bountyhunter to make ends meet.
Evanovich’s writing has combined aterrific and sometimes droll sense of humor (“If you want to cry, you're notgoing to like my books”) with a knack for setting up mystery, suspense andkeeping her readers totally involved. “Iactually really suck at naming books, so lots of years ago, readers weresending in their ideas for titles,” she explained.
“What we realized is that they were smarterthan us. So we thought, Hey, go for it. So now we have a contest every year.”Evanovich is testament to perserverance. During those first years oftrying she had dozens of rejection letters for her first booksbefore she finally connected with a romance novel for which she received$2,000. “I thought it was an astoundingsum,” she recalled. Today, she is worth nearly $150 million.
April 22, 2023
'The breathings of your heart'
“Thatbest portion of a man's life are his little, nameless, unremembered acts ofkindness and love.” – William Wordsworth
Wordsworth, born in England’s LakeCountry in April of 1770, was mostly self-taught as both a reader and writer,but his immense natural talent led to his becoming Britain's Poet Laureate from1843 until his death in April of 1850. Along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he helped launch the Romantic Age inEnglish [image error] literature with a joint publication of their 1798 masterpiece, LyricalBallads. When asked by rising young Scottishpoet and playwright Joanna Baillie what advice a young poet might take from him, he replied, “Fillyour paper with the breathings of your heart.” Indeed. ForSaturday’s Poem, here is Wordsworth’s,
My Heart Leaps Up
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
A Writer's Moment: 'The breathings of your heart'
A Writer's Moment: 'The breathings of your heart': “That best portion of a man's life are his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.” – William Wordsworth Words...
April 21, 2023
'An environment of decency for all living creatures'
"Our goal is not just an environment of clean air andwater and scenic beauty. The objective is an environment of decency,quality and mutual respect for all other human beings and all other livingcreatures."Gaylord Nelson
I was just out of college and only a month ahead of a stint in the Army when I wasassigned to report on the first Earth Day in 1970. My editor was skeptical that anything mighthappen, but it soon became clear that people, especiallyyoung people, were organizing dozens of projects and I was on the frontline reporting about them.
In 1990, I persuadedSenator Nelson to be the Earth Day guest speaker at the small college campus where Iwas working as Director of Public Relations. He spoke eloquently and passionately about why we must continue to carry it forward and expand upon it eachand every year. [image error]Gaylord Nelson
“Earth Day achieved what I had hoped for and then some,” hetold the students. “The purpose of Earth Day was to get anationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it wouldshake the political establishment out of its lethargy and, finally, force thisissue permanently into the political arena.
“It was truly an astonishing grassroots explosion."
If ever there was a Writer’s Moment for me, it was the first EarthDay. It has remained so ever since.
A Writer's Moment: 'An environment of decency for all living creatures'
A Writer's Moment: 'An environment of decency for all living creatures': "Our goal is not just an environment of clean air and water and scenic beauty. The objective is an environment of decency, quality a...
April 20, 2023
A Writer's Moment: 'First . . . Be Accessible'
A Writer's Moment: 'First . . . Be Accessible': “ I want to write about serious things, but I want to write about them in a way that makes them accessible to a large number of people - ...
'First . . . Be Accessible'
“Iwant to write about serious things, but I want to write about them in a waythat makes them accessible to a large number of people - to take them throughthe argument by dramatizing the circumstances in which these issues are beingdiscussed.” – Sebastian Faulks Born on this date in 1953, Britishnovelist, journalist and broadcaster Faulks is best known for his historicalnovels set in France – The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong and CharlotteGray. He also has published such contemporary novels as Paris Echo, A Week inDecember and the James Bondcontinuation novel Devil May Care for which he won the British BookAwards' “Popular Fiction Award.”
Honored by the British Crownfor his lifetime contributions to English Literature, he has had the rareaccolade of being tabbed as both “popular and literary at the same time.” Englishtheatre, film and television director Trevor Nunn called Faulks' novel, Human Traces "A masterpiece, one of the great novels ofthis or any other century."
Faulks advises writers to be"strong readers" first. “I don't know howyou can understand other people or yourself if you haven't read a lot of books," he said. "I just don't think you're equipped to deal with the demands and decisions oflife, particularly in your dealings with other people.”
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