Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 378
February 18, 2019
Finding the figure inside
“I think the hardest part of writing is revising. And by that I mean the following: A novelist has to create the piece of marble and then chip away to find the figure in It.” – Chaim Potok
Born in the Bronx on Feb. 17, 1929, Potok was an American Jewish author and rabbi (he died of cancer in 2003). His first book, The Chosen, published in 1967, was listed on The New York Times’ bestseller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3.4 million copies.
Ultimately authoring 19 books and the 14-volume Jewish Ethics, still taught in numerous University religion courses, Potok also was a renowned scholar and teacher. He taught a highly regarded graduate seminar on Postmodernism at the University of Pennsylvania from 1993 through 2001 until a diagnosis of brain cancer stopped his career and further writing.
Also an artist, he recreated the painting "The Brooklyn Crucifixion,” which his character Asher Lev painted in his novel My Name is Asher Lev. Asher, he said, was somewhat based on his own life and family conflicts that arose over whether he should or should not pursue a writing career. Many characters in that book were based on people in Potok’s own life.“I think most serious writers, certainly in the modern period, use their own lives or the lives
of people close to them or lives they have heard about as the raw material for their creativity.”
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February 17, 2019
A Writer's Moment: 'In Love With Language'
A Writer's Moment: 'In Love With Language': “A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.” – W.H. Auden Born in Engla...
February 16, 2019
'In Love With Language'
“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.” – W.H. Auden
Born in England in February 1907, Auden became a naturalized American citizen before his death in 1973. A prolific writer, he penned about 400 poems, including seven long poems (two of them book-length), 400-plus essays and reviews, and a number of plays and screenplays, seveal with other leading writers of the time. He also wrote many opera libretti and musical collaborations.
While so many of his poems are long and complex, this one – for Saturday’s Poem – is shorter and more whimsical. Here is Auden’s,The More Loving One
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
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February 15, 2019
A Writer's Moment: Tackling the Hard Work of Writing
A Writer's Moment: Tackling the Hard Work of Writing: “I think that if you have a knack for storytelling, and you work really hard at it, you'll have a chance to tap in...
Tackling the Hard Work of Writing
“I think that if you have a knack for storytelling, and you work really hard at it, you'll have a chance to tap into something deep. But the fact remains that good sentences are hard won. Any writer worth a lick knows constructing a sentence, a paragraph, or a chapter is hard work. ”–Adam Ross
Born on this date in 1967, Ross grew up in New York City and attended the Trinity School, where he was a state champion wrestler, and a child actor, appearing in movies, commercials, and television shows, as well as on radio dramas. After studying English at Vassar College, he went on to earn a Master’s degree from Hollins University and Master of Fine Arts degree from Washington University, both in creative writing.
Author of the critically acclaimed novel Mister Peanut, he also has written stories for magazines, newspapers and journals and served as a feature writer and special projects editor for the Nashville (TN) Scene. Ross’s nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Daily Beast, Tin House, and The Wall Street Journal. His fiction has been published in The Berlin Journal, The Carolina Quarterly, and The Sunday Times of London. In addition to his writing, he serves as Editor of The Sewanee Review. Asked about story writing, he said, “Simply put, you can read a story in a single sitting and hold it all in your mind. You can experience all of its rhythms, beginning to end, during that span. Consequently it has, I think, greater emotional power than a novel because of this real-time effect. Stories can stun you.”
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February 13, 2019
Shaping Our 'Writing Destiny'
“There is a destiny that shapes our ends rough, hew them as we will.”– Frank Harris
Editor, novelist, short story writer and journalist, Harris was born in Ireland on Valentine’s Day, 1856. He emigrated to the U.S. at a young age, and then gravitated back to Ireland and Europe in the 1880s before ultimately becoming a U.S. citizen in 1921, living the final 10 years of his life between the two continents.
A law school graduate from the University of Kansas, Harris tried a legal career for several years before deciding that it was too boring and what he really wanted to do was write. He attracted much attention during his lifetime for his irascible, aggressive personality, editorship of famous periodicals, and friendship with the talented and famous. In addition to authoring popular books like The Bomb and The Yellow Ticket and Other Stories.
Despite many writing successes, Harris may be best known today for his 4-volume memoir My Life and Loves(he was married 3 times, including the author/playwright Enid Bagnold), loosely based on his life despite it’s “Memoir” title.
“Memoirs,” he said with tongue firmly in cheek, “are a well-known form of fiction.”
“I am, really, a great writer; my only difficulty is in finding great readers.” Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com
A Writer's Moment: Shaping Our 'Writing Destiny'
A Writer's Moment: Shaping Our 'Writing Destiny': “There is a destiny that shapes our ends rough, hew them as we will.” – Frank Harris Editor, novelist, short stor...
February 12, 2019
A Writer's Moment: Hungry for their stories
A Writer's Moment: Hungry for their stories: “Readers are hungry to have their stories in the world, to see mirrors of themselves if the stories are about people l...
Hungry for their stories
“Readers are hungry to have their stories in the world, to see mirrors of themselves if the stories are about people like them, and to have windows if the stories are about people who have been historically absent in literature.” – Jacqueline Woodson
Woodson has built her writing career around strong, emotional and optimistic stories, especially for young people where most of her works have been focused. Woodson said she dislikes books that do not offer hope and often uses that philosophy in her writing. "If you love the people you create,” she said, “you can see the hope there."
Born in Ohio on this date in 1963, Woodson grew up in South Carolina and Brooklyn, NY, and started writing in Middle School, an age she now enjoys writing for and about. Among her best-known Middle School and Young Adult books are Miracle’s Boys, After Tupac and D Foster, and the Newbery Honor-winning Brown Girl Dreaming. The immediate past Young People's Poet Laureate (from 2015–17), she is the current National Ambassador for Young People's Literature – both named by the Library of Congress – and said she consciously writes for a younger audience.“I love writing for young people. It's the literature that was most important to me, the stories that shaped me and informed my own journey as a writer.”
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February 11, 2019
A Writer's Moment: Be A Reader - Every Day
A Writer's Moment: Be A Reader - Every Day: “Read something of interest every day - something of interest to you, not to your teacher or your best friend or your ...
