Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 35

A Writer's Moment: 'Embrace ALL the possibilities'

A Writer's Moment: 'Embrace ALL the possibilities':   “Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.” – Henry James   Born in Ne...

'A witness to what is around'

 

“A writer is not a prophet, is not aphilosopher; he's just someone who is witness to what is around him.” – J.M. G. Le Clézio

 

Born in France on this date in 1940,Le Clézio won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature.   The authorof over 40 works, he was awarded the 1963 Prix Renaudot for his masterpiecenovel Le Procès-Verbal, and was the first winner of the Grand PrixPaul Morand, awarded by the Académie Française for his novel Désert.   

 

Called by the Nobel committee"… (an) author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy,(and) explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigningcivilization.” Le Clézio began writing at age 7 and was published whilestill in his teens.   In addition to his many books, he hasauthored myriad short stories, essays, two translations on the subject ofNative American mythology, and several children's books.  

 

During the past two decades he also hasbeen known for his travel writing and has taught in both Korea and China.  His most recent works are the novella OnThe Wrong Side in 2023, and the nonfiction book Identité nomade in2024.

 

“I don't have any office; I canwrite everywhere. So, I put a piece of paper on the table, and then I travel.  Literally, writing for me is like travelling.  It's getting out of myself and living anotherlife - maybe a better life.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A witness to what is around'

A Writer's Moment: 'A witness to what is around':   “A writer is not a prophet, is not a philosopher; he's just someone who is witness to what is around him.” –  J. M. G. Le Clézio   ...

A Writer's Moment: 'Cutting through the noise'

A Writer's Moment: 'Cutting through the noise':   “Poetry cuts through the noise of other words, like a prayer. It wakes us. It finds us. It witnesses life simultaneously at its most consc...

'Cutting through the noise'

 

“Poetry cuts through the noise ofother words, like a prayer. It wakes us. It finds us. It witnesses lifesimultaneously at its most conscious and its most hidden. A poem is alwaysabout what it means to be alive and mortal.” – AnneMichaels

 

Born in Toronto, Canada on April 15, 1958Michaels has won dozens of international awards and had her work translated and published in nearly 50 countries. The recipient of the Commonwealth PoetryPrize for the Americas and the Canadian Authors' Association Award, she also isan award winner for her fiction, especially the highly lauded novel FugitivePieces (also made into a successful film).  Her most recent novel is 2023's Held.   For Saturday’s Poem, hereis Michaels’,

  

                  Flowers

There’s another skin inside my skin

that gathers to your touch, a laketo the light;

that looses its memory, its lostlanguage

into your tongue,

erasing me into newness.

 

Just when the body thinks it knows

the ways of knowing itself,

this second skin continues toanswer.

 

In the street – café chairsabandoned

on terraces; market stalls emptied

of their solid light,

though pavement still breathes

summer grapes and peaches.

Like the light of anything thatgrows

from this newly-turned earth,

every tip of me gathers under yourtouch,

wind wrapping my dress around ourlegs,

Your shirt twisting to flowers in myfists.

 

A Writer's Moment: 'The chance to use your voice'

A Writer's Moment: 'The chance to use your voice':   "In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right."  – Ellen Goodman   Born in M...

'The chance to use your voice'

 

"In journalism, there hasalways been a tension between getting it first and getting it right." –Ellen Goodman

 

Born in Massachusetts on this datein 1941, Goodman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author of 8 books, and a frequent speaker and commentator on society and social issues.

                                                                                                                              

After earning a degree in history atRadcliffe, she gravitated to writing after taking a “temporary” job as aresearcher at Newsweek magazine. After working as a reporterat the Detroit Free Press and the Boston Globe,she started writing on social issues and soon was presenting her thoughts in a column read by millions around the world.

 

She was the first woman to bepublished on a major newspaper's Op-Ed Page and the first to have a regularcolumn, joining the Washington Post Writers Group in 1976where her groundbreaking writings have inspired action for decades.

 

Honored by the National Society ofNewspaper Columnists with the “Ernie Pyle Award for Lifetime Achievement,” she alsois the recipient of the American Society of News Editors’ Distinguished WritingAward, the Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award, and the National Women’sPolitical Caucus President's Award.  

 

“I think thathaving a job in journalism, despite all of the changes, is still a fantasticway to be – to make a living observing your society and having a chance to useyour voice.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Right Choice-ing' at the fork in the road

A Writer's Moment: 'Right Choice-ing' at the fork in the road:   “The films of which I'm most proud I've written are the ones that pivot on forgiveness.” – Peter Morgan   Born in England on t...

'Right Choice-ing' at the fork in the road

 

“The films of which I'm most proudI've written are the ones that pivot on forgiveness.” – PeterMorgan

 

Born in England on this date in1963, Morgan is best known for his historical films and plays The Queen and Frost/Nixon, andfor creating Netflix’s wildly successful series The Crown.   Healso co-wrote the screenplay for the award-winning movie The Last Kingof Scotland.  

 

The son of immigrants who fled toGreat Britain to escape the Nazis (his father) and Soviet repression (hismother), he started writing while at the University of Leeds. His bigbreakthrough came with The Queen, for which he won a Golden Globeand the lead actor Helen Mirren an Academy Award.   Since then,everything he’s written has been successful and influential, for which he was honored with the Commander of the Order of theBritish Empire (CBE) for services to drama.

 

 “As a dramatist, you have 200 choices at everyfork in the road,” he said.   “But the audience will reject it if you makethe wrong choice, if they feel you are trying to shape the character in a waythat suits you.  It rings false immediately.  People can sense whenyou're being cynical or schematic.”

Every day an adventure'

 

“Mystery writing involves solving apuzzle, but 'high suspense' writing is a situation whereby the writer thruststhe hero/heroine into high drama.” – Iris Johansen

  

Born in St. Louis in April of 1938,Johansen was working as a flight attendant when she decided to try writing – boredwith the romance novels she liked to read.  

 

After early successes in the Romancegenre, she began writing Historical Romance suspense novels in 1991 with thepublication of The Wind Dancer, then settled into suspense writingwith her bestselling crime fiction thriller Ugly Duckling in1996.   A self-described “voracious” writer, she now has written116 books, her latest being On The Hunt in 2024. 

 

Writing is a family affair forJohansen.  Her son Roy is an Edgar Award-winning screenwriter andnovelist and has co-written 15 books with his mom.  Her daughter Tamara serves as her researchassistant.  

 

Her myriad fans say Johansen’swriting often leaves them spellbound. 

 

“The greatest compliment a writercan be given is that a story and character hold a reader spellbound,” she said,adding that she can’t wait to get back to her writing each day.  “Everyday should be an adventure, not a treadmill.”