Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 381

Research: 'Like being a detective'

“I enjoy doing the research of nonfiction; that gives me some pleasure, being a detective again.” – Joseph Wambaugh
Often listed among the greatest crime writers – for both nonfiction AND fiction – Wambaugh was born on this date in 1937.  Growing up in Pittsburgh, PA, the son of a police officer, he joined the U.S. Marines at age 17, served several years in the Corps, then followed his dad into police work, starting with the Los Angeles Police Department. 
In 1971, his first book, The New Centurions, was a critical and financial success, but he continued working as a police officer while writing, winning even more awards and success with his second book, The Blue Knight.   “(But) When I wrote The Onion Field, I realized that my first two novels were just practice,” Wambaugh said.  “The Onion Field made me a real writer. And . . . I couldn't be a cop anymore.”     
                            Many of his novels are set in Los Angeles and its surroundings, featuring Los Angeles police officers as protagonists, but his nonfiction books like The Blooding and Fire Lover: A True Story, are set in other parts of the country and England   Wambaugh has been nominated for 4 Edgar awards winning 3, and named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.  To date he has written 16 novels and 5 nonfiction books, all bestsellers and many winners of numerous awards. 
He said when he writes, he’s very focused.  “I write a thousand words a day,” he said.  “Nothing will stop me, I mean nothing, until the book is finished. I'm disciplined in spite of myself.”


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'The time to do what's right'

“The time is always right to do what’s right.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. 
Born in Atlanta on Jan. 15, 1929, King is celebrated everywhere for his dedication to peace, justice and equal rights for all, regardless of race, creed or color.  His writings have been widely distributed and quoted and continue to serve as a major inspiration for readers, writers and activists of every social justice cause.
He is the only individual American to be honored with a federal holiday in his name, and he won or has been named for hundreds of other awards both in America and abroad, including (at the time in 1964) being the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He was awarded both the Presidential Medal of Freedom (in 1977) and The Congressional Gold Medal (in 2004), the only person to be honored with both.      And, he is the youngest person to ever receive more than 50 honorary degrees. 
One of King’s first books, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,  won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, which is dedicated to honoring written works that make important contributions to the understanding of racism and the appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture.
“The art of acceptance,” he said, “is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.”


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Doing us a great favor

“The time is always right to do what’s right.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.  Born in Atlanta on Jan. 15, 1929, King is celebrated everywhere for his dedication to peace, justice and equal rights for all, regardless of race, creed or color.  His writings have been widely distributed and quoted and continue to serve as a major inspiration for readers, writers and activists of every social justice cause.
He is the only individual American to be honored with a federal holiday in his name, and he won or has been named for hundreds of other awards both in America and abroad, including (at the time in 1964) being the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He was awarded both the Presidential Medal of Freedom (in 1977) and The Congressional Gold Medal (in 2004), the only person to be honored with both.      And, he is the youngest person to ever receive more than 50 honorary degrees. 
One of King’s first books, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,  won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, which is dedicated to honoring written works that make important contributions to the understanding of racism and the appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture.
“The art of acceptance,” he said, “is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.”


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Few Words, Great Impact

“You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about.” – William Stafford
  Born on Jan. 17, 1914, Stafford taught poetry and writing at Lewis & Clark College for more than 30 years before his first major poetry collection, Traveling Through the Dark, was published.      Winner of the 1963 National Book Award (for that book), Stafford went on to publish more than 60 volumes of poetry and prose, win numerous honors and awards, and serve as Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress before his death in 1993.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Stafford’s,
Just ThinkingGot up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window.
No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held
for awhile.  Some dove somewhere.

Been on probation most of my life. And
the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments
count for a lot--peace, you know.

Let the bucket of memory down into the well,
bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one
stirring, no plans. Just being there.

This is what the whole thing is about.

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Using talents and skills for good

“All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise: therefore, if you choose to use the bad, or those which tend to evil till they become your masters, and neglect the good till they dwindle away, you have only yourself to blame.”– Anne Bronte
Both novelist and poet, the youngest member of the Brontë literary family (her sisters Emily and Charlotte also were widely published and read during her short lifetime), Anne was born on this date in 1820.  She died at age 29 from tuberculosis and the flu, only a few months after the death of her sister Emily from a similar malady.  
Her novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, published just months before she died, was considered both brilliant - for its complex, multi-layered plot - and shocking, especially in that staid Victorian era.  It was an instant hit and sold out in just weeks.   Still studied in writing programs around the globe, Tenant’s depiction of alcoholism and debauchery was both disturbing and an awakening to 19th-century sensibilities, especially in its revelation about the treatment of women.
In issuing a call to action from her readers, she wrote:  “No generous mind delights to oppress the weak, but rather to cherish and protect.”


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'No one is stopping you'

“Every published writer suffers through that first draft because most of the time, that's a disappointment.” – Rebecca Stead
Born in New York City on this date in 1968, Stead started her career as a lawyer but turned to writing – something she loved but thought impractical as a way to make a living – in 2007 after the birth of her two children.  After moderate success with her debut novel, First Light, she won the prestigious Newbery Medal for her second novel When You Reach Me, a “suspense-mystery-supernatural” hybrid whose 6th grade protagonist Miranda is a fan of sci-fi/fantasy writer Madeleine L’Engle. 
Stead may have hearkened back to her own youth as an avid reader in crafting her character.  “I read a whole lot as a child, and, of course, I still read children's books,” Stead said.  “I never had a favorite book! I liked all kinds of things . . . and I also liked reading about kids like myself.”  When You Reach Me is currently ranked 11thon the School Library Journal’s list of “100 Best Children’s Novels.”                                 Not one to rest on her laurels, Stead wrote another award-winner, Liar & Spy, which earned Britain’s Guardian Prize as the best children's book by a writer who had not previously won it.   Stead became the first writer from the U.S. – or from anywhere outside the British Commonwealth – to win the award.

“The wonderful thing about writing fiction is that no one is stopping you,” Stead remarked.   “There's no one saying, 'You can't do that.' “


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Stepping out of the real world

“Every book that you pick up takes you a step away from your real world, but if you read a book about magic, it takes you an extra two steps.”– Jenny Nimmo

Born on this date in 1944, Nimmo is a British author of children's books, including many fantasy and adventure novels.  While she was born in England, she has lived mostly in Wales for the past 40 years and is probably best known for two series of fantasy novels with their roots in that region: The Magician Trilogy, contemporary stories rooted in Welsh myth, and Children of the Red King.
A voracious reader as a child, she started writing while still in elementary school but actually began her professional writing career by adapting other writers’ stories for use by the BBC.  Her own first book The Bronze Trumpeter started as a BBC script before she re-worked it.                                     Her focus on writing for children grew out of her firm belief that reading to children is vital to their development.  She said that reading to her own 3 children made her a better writer – that and the Welsh landscape, culture and myths that surrounded her and her family in their adopted home.
“Inspiration comes from the world around me,” she said.   “I'm an inveterate eavesdropper.”


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The 'Curiosity Behind the Character'

“For me, when I 'discover' a story, there is a feeling of buoyancy and clarity, perhaps similar to early morning out on a prairie highway, when darkness lifts and reveals the outline of farmhouses and copses of trees in the distance.” – David Bergen
Born in British Columbia on this date in 1957, Bergen grew up in Manitoba, studied Creative Communication at a Mennonite Bible College there and taught both high school English and creative writing before taking a stab at writing fiction himself.  He actually started thinking about writing before he began his teaching career.  “At the age of twenty, having published nothing and having had little guidance in my reading, I decided that I wanted to write,” he said.    Starting with short stories (his first efforts appeared in the 1980s), he turned to novels in the mid-‘90s.  His debut novel, A Year of Lesser in 1996, was both a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award.  It also set him on a writing path that has won him some two-dozen writing awards for his 8 novels (to date) and 1 short story collection.  His most recent novel, Stranger, was published in 2016.   
                              “What fascinates me as a writer is the stuff underneath,” Bergen said.   “To me, what drives a novel is the curiosity behind the character and the depths that you want to find in that character.”

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Speaking for the Downtrodden

“Meet some people who care about poetry the way you do. You'll have that readership. Keep going until you know you're doing work that's worthy. And then see what happens. That's my advice.” –  Philip Levine

Born on Jan. 10, 1928, Levine was one of the leading poetic voices of his generation, using his writing to advocate for those downtrodden and often forgotten by those in power. His heroes were ordinary folks who worked at hopeless jobs simply to stave off poverty.     Critic Herbert Leibowitz, commenting on Levine’s multiple award-winning Ashes: Poems New and Old, wrote: “Levine has returned again and again in his poems to the lives of ordinary workers trapped by the poverty and drudgery . . . which breaks the body and scars the spirit.”   For Saturday’s Poem here is Levine’s
An Abandoned Factory
The gates are chained, the barbed-wire fencing stands,
An iron authority against the snow,
And this grey monument to common sense
Resists the weather. Fears of idle hands,
Of protest, men in league, and of the slow
Corrosion of their minds, still charge this fence.

Beyond, through broken windows one can see
Where the great presses paused between their strokes
And thus remain, in air suspended, caught
In the sure margin of eternity.
The cast-iron wheels have stopped; one counts the spokes
Which movement blurred, the struts inertia fought,

And estimates the loss of human power,
Experienced and slow, the loss of years,
The gradual decay of dignity.
Men lived within these foundries, hour by hour;
Nothing they forged outlived the rusted gears
Which might have served to grind their eulogy.
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Writing and Coffee, A 'Winning' Combo

Americans have long been big coffee drinkers and it’s especially true that writers guzzle the stuff in order to keep their senses sharp while working on their trade.  But, one famous writer who probably is “hands down” ahead of the rest of us in imbibing is also one of our most famous politicians – Theodore Roosevelt.
Roosevelt, who wrote 35 books in his lifetime, penned several bestsellers, including some that are still referenced by scholars today (The Naval War of 1812 and The Life of Thomas Hart Benton, for example).   He also is said to have been a speed reader able to devour a book every single day.
In the early years of Roosevelt’s sickly childhood, he was not expected to survive … or if he did survive not to have the strength to do much in adulthood.  His parents believed in strong coffee and cigar smoke as “remedies,” particularly to help him overcome severe asthma, according to The Smithsonian.  For T.R. at least those remedies worked.
A famous coffee drinker from then on, he had a custom-made cup one of his sons called “More in the nature of a bathtub.”  After his death, from 1919-1928, his children honored their father’s coffee-drinking legacy by operating the nation’s first coffeehouse chain (in New York City), called “Brazilian,” and then “The Double R.”   
                               Although it’s up in the air about whether or not it really happened, T.R. is often credited with coining the first coffee advertising slogan.  While touring President Andrew Jackson’s estate in 1907 he drank a cup of Maxwell House coffee and proclaimed it “Good to the Last Drop,” a slogan they still use today.
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