Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 373
March 21, 2019
Bringing Characters From The Shadows
“Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, I've never had the sense I was 'making up' a character. It feels more like watching people reveal themselves, ever more deeply, more intimately.” – Kathryn Harrison
Born in Los Angeles on this date in 1960, Harrison earned degrees at both Stanford and the University of Iowa, where she first studied in that school’s famed Writers’ Workshop. Her debut novel, Thicker Than Water, was an instant success and paved the way for a career that (to date) includes 7 novels, 2 memoirs, 2 collections of personal essays, a travelogue, 2 biographies, and a book of true crime.
Almost as well known for her personal essays – which have been included in many anthologies as well as in such leading magazines as Harper's, The New Yorkerand Vogue – she also is regularly seen as a reviewer for The New York Times Book Review. Now a full-time resident of New York City, she shares her writing skills by teaching memoir writing at the City University of New York’s Hunter College as part of their Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing. “I admire writers who succeed at what I consider the first demand of art: that the artist vivisect himself without pity, without hesitation, determined to reveal whatever he might find.”
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A Writer's Moment: Bringing Characters From The Shadows
A Writer's Moment: Bringing Characters From The Shadows: “Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, I've never had the sense I was 'making up' a character. It feels m...
March 19, 2019
Offering Your Writing Talents
“Each of us has a gift, a talent, that we can offer to the world that makes the world essentially a better place.” – James Redfield
Born in Alabama on this date in 1950, Redfield is an author, lecturer, screenwriter and film producer, most notably for his novel The Celestine Prophecy, a first-person narrative of the narrator's spiritual awakening as he goes through a transitional period of his life.
Redfield’s debut novel, written when he was 40, raced to the forefront of many best-seller lists and then was re-published by Warner Books, which took it to Number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller List, where it stayed for over 3 years. The Celestine Prophecy was the No. 1 international bestseller of 1996 (#2 in 1995) and sold over 20 million copies. To date it has been translated into 34 languages and made into a major motion picture.
Honored by his alma mater, Auburn University, with its “Humanitarian of the Year” Award, Redfield also received the “World View Award” from the Wisdom Media Group for engaging the discussion on the nature of human existence and for his ongoing efforts and contributions to the bettering of humanity.
“What I need in order to stay creative and centered is a certain amount of distance from the maddening crowd,” Redfield said about his writing. “You cease to be your best self if you're running too fast.” Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com
A Writer's Moment: Offering Your Writing Talents
A Writer's Moment: Offering Your Writing Talents: “Each of us has a gift, a talent, that we can offer to the world that makes the world essentially a better place.” – J...
March 17, 2019
A Writer's Moment: An Irish Blessing
A Writer's Moment: An Irish Blessing: “You are never too old to set another goal, or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis What better Irish writer to salute on St. Patrick’...
An Irish Blessing
“You are never too old to set another goal, or to dream a new dream.”– C.S. Lewis
What better Irish writer to salute on St. Patrick’s Day than Clive Staple (C.S.) Lewis, born in Belfast, Ireland in 1898 and one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century. Lewis started writing in his parents’ attic at age 7 and never really stopped. He wrote more than 30 books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands each year. C.S. Lewis’s most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Screwtape Letters and, of course, the universally acknowledged Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books alone have sold well over 100 million copies and been made into 3 major motion pictures.
While his impact on the world’s literature is ever-lasting, he himself had a great love of literature and for what it stood. “Literature,” he said, “adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives already have become.” On St. Patrick’s Day, Lewis liked to quote this Irish prayer: An Irish Blessing
May your days be many and your troubles be few. May all God's blessings descend upon you.
May peace be within you, may your heart be strong. May you find what you're seeking wherever you roam.
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March 16, 2019
Believing Is Seeing
“Some things have to be believed to be seen.” – Ralph Hodgson
Born in 1871, Hodgson was a popular English poet considered one of the more “pastoral” of the group of so-called Georgian Poets.
A number of his poems were set to music in the 1930s and ‘40s, and he was honored for his life’s work with the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Also a publisher and professor, he was a much sought-after speaker, including in the U.S. where he retired and lived in Ohio from the mid-1950s to his death in 1962. For Saturday’s Poem, here is Hodgson’s,The Gypsy Girl
'Come, try your skill, kind gentlemen,
A penny for three tries!'
Some threw and lost, some threw and won
A ten-a-penny prize.
She was a tawny gypsy girl,
A girl of twenty years,
I liked her for the lumps of gold
That jingled from her ears;
I liked the flaring yellow scarf
Bound loose about her throat,
I liked her showy purple gown
And flashy velvet coat.
A man came up, too loose of tongue,
And said no good to her;
She did not blush as Saxons do,
Or turn upon the cur;
She fawned and whined, 'Sweet gentleman,
A penny for three tries!'
- But oh, the den of wild things in
The darkness of her eyes!
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A Writer's Moment: Believing Is Seeing
A Writer's Moment: Believing Is Seeing: “Some things have to be believed to be seen.” – Ralph Hodgson Born in 1871, Hodgson was a popular English poet co...
March 15, 2019
A Writer's Moment: Her writing formula for success
A Writer's Moment: Her writing formula for success: “With historicals, the research is half the fun. Contemporaries are especially easy. People are right out there in fro...
Her writing formula for success
“With historicals, the research is half the fun. Contemporaries are especially easy. People are right out there in front of you; you meet them every day. You can concentrate wholly on the story and characters.”– Heather Graham Pozzessere Born on March 15, 1953, Pozzessere has penned more that 150 novels and novellas with sales well over 75 million in some 25 languages, writing in the historical, romance, paranormal and suspense genres. Also known under both her maiden name, Heather Graham, and the pen name Shannon Drake, she has built a faithful reading audience that ranges in age from teenage girls to women in their 90s – “and men, too,” she said, “especially for my Civil War era books.”
A native Floridian who at one time was an aspiring actress, Pozzessere has been awarded the Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Thriller Writer's Silver Bullet for her charitable efforts. Founder of the Florida Chapter of the Romance Writers of America, she also is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Novelists Inc., and the Horror Writers Association (of which she is a former Vice President).A graduate of the University of South Florida and mother of 5, she started writing in the early 1980s to write what she wanted to read. She said characters and stories are everywhere, but she doesn’t take writing about them lightly. “I always feel a responsibility to the people I write about,” she said. “I feel obligated to portray them in the way they feel is proper.”
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