Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 20

A Writer's Moment: 'Fates that are intimately linked'

A Writer's Moment: 'Fates that are intimately linked':   “When I write stories I am like someone who is in her own country, walking along streets that she has known since she was a child, between...

Poetry 'discovered'

 

“Isn't it amazing the way the futuresucceeds in creating an appropriate past?” – JohnLeonard

 

Born in Great Britain in July of1965, Leonard now makes his home in Australia where he served as poetry editorof the magazine Overland.   My first encounter withLeonard was seeing one of his lines etched onto a rugged piece of rock in agift shop, the words reading: “It takes a long time to grow an old friend.” 

 

Among Leonard’s most celebrated works are Thinkof the world: Collected poems 1986-2016 and Missa Mundi,alternative texts for the four pieces of the Catholic liturgy most commonly setto music.   More about Leonard and his many writings can befound at http://www.jleonard.net/   For Saturday’s Poem, from BraidedLands, here is Leonard’s,

 

You Don't Write a Poem

Youdon't write a poem-

Whatyou do is discover

Thatthere is a world,

Quitesimilar to our own,

Exceptthat it contains

Thisone extra poem.

 

Andwhat you recognize

Isthat this one poem

Makesall the difference

A Writer's Moment: Poetry 'discovered'

A Writer's Moment: Poetry 'discovered':   “Isn't it amazing the way the future succeeds in creating an appropriate past?”  – John Leonard   Born in Great Britain in July of...

'Sentences that breathe and shift'

 

“I approach writing stories as arecorder. I think of my role as some kind of reporting device - recording andprojecting.” –  Jhumpa Lahiri

 

Born in London on this date in 1967,Lahiri is an Indian-American author and creative writing professor (at Barnard,her alma mater).  She is winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her shortstory collection – Interpreter of Maladies – one of the fewstory “collections” ever so-honored.  Hernovel The Namesake, also adapted as a movie, is equallywonderful.  

 

And her most recent novel, TheLowland, is a “must read” for those who want to “know” the modern-day U.S.immigrant experience.  It was a nominee for the Man Booker Prize and aNational Book Award for Fiction.  Afterliving several years in Italy, Lahiri authored Roman Stories (in2023), and she served as editor and translator of the Penguin Book ofItalian Short Stories, a collection by 40 different Italian writers.

 

The first Indian-American to serve onthe President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, she is a recipient of theNational Humanities Medal for her writing. 

 

“In fiction, plenty (of words) dothe job of conveying information, rousing suspense, painting characters,enabling them to speak,” Lahiri said.  “Butonly certain sentences breathe and shift about, like live matter in soil.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Sentences that breathe and shift'

A Writer's Moment: 'Sentences that breathe and shift':   “I approach writing stories as a recorder. I think of my role as some kind of reporting device - recording and projecting.”  –  Jhumpa L...

'It's how we keep telling ourselves our stories'

“Memory is the way we keep tellingourselves our stories - and telling other people a somewhat different versionof our stories.” – Alice Munro

 

Born in Canada on this date in 1931(she died in May of 2024) Nobel Prize winner Munro is noted for“revolutionizing the architecture of short stories,” especially with hertendency to move forward and backward in time.   Herstories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more thanparade."

 

A frequent theme of Munro’s work,particularly in her early stories like 1971’s Lives of Girls and Women,she focuses on the dilemma of girls coming of age and their relationships with boththeir families and small-town life.  In her later works like Runaway,she shifted her focus to the travails of middle age, women alone, and theelderly.                             

                                       

Winner of the 2009 Man BookerInternational Prize for her lifetime body of work, she also was a three-time winnerof Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction.  Her last short story collection, Dear Life,came out in 2012 just before she was honored with the Nobel Prize.

 “A story is not like a road to follow . . . it’s morelike a house,” Munro said.  “You goinside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling whereyou like and discovering how the rooms and corridors relate to each other; howthe world outside is altered by being viewed from (each of) its windows.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's how we keep telling ourselves our stories'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's how we keep telling ourselves our stories': “Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories - and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.”  – Alice M...

A Writer's Moment: 'Spending time in a magical world'

A Writer's Moment: 'Spending time in a magical world':   “It's a wonderful sort of feeling when people want to spend more time in a world you created.”  –  Erin Morgenstern    Born on July...

'Spending time in a magical world'

 

“It's a wonderful sort of feelingwhen people want to spend more time in a world you created.” –  ErinMorgenstern
 

 Born on July 8, 1978Morgenstern got her writing career started with a bang with TheNight Circus, winner of  the Locus Award for Best First Novel.  The book – which was rejected by 30publishers before being accepted – spent 17 weeks atop the New YorkTimes bestseller list and now hasbeen published in more than a dozen languages.

 

She wrote the book, favorablycompared to the Harry Potter books and works by Ray Bradbury.as a participant in “National Novel Writing Month” (November), where youpledge to write at least a 50,000-word novel in less than 30days.   She continues to participate in novel-writing month, herlatest book being The Starless Sea.  

 

A graduate of Smith College, whereshe studied both theater and studio art, she also dabbled in magic – somethingthat set the stage for Night Circus.

 

“I am a fan of magic and fantasy,particularly when it's grounded in reality,” she said.  “I like theidea of having actual magic performed as stage magic, so you could assume thatit was just a trick; that something is all smoke and mirrors, but there's that,like, feeling at the back of your mind: 'What if it's not?'”   

A Writer's Moment: 'Just a storyteller, not a prophet'

A Writer's Moment: 'Just a storyteller, not a prophet':   “I get up at an unholy hour in the morning; my work day completed by the time the sun rises. I have a slightly bad back which has made an ...