Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 402
June 4, 2018
Words Are Our Lives
“Words are our life. We are human because we use language. So I think we are less human when we use less language.” – Carol Shields
Born in the U.S. on this date in 1935, Carol Shields grew up in America but spent much of her adult life in Canada and eventually had dual citizenship. She was a full-time writing professor, novelist, playwright and short story writer and won both the Pulitzer Prize and Canada’s equivalent, The Governor General’s Award for her novel The Stone Diaries. She is the only writer to ever win both awards for the same book. She died from cancer in 2003.
Shields short story collections, including Various Miracles and Dressing Up for the Carnival, also were much-honored and are part of the Collected Stories of Carol Shieldspublished after her death. Her nonfiction book on author Jane Austin also won several major awards. And her plays, particularly "Departures and Arrivals" and "Thirteen Hands" have been performed countless times by amateur and professional theaters around the globe.
To see more of this remarkable woman’s thoughts and advice on writing, check out her son Nicholas’s recent book Startle and Illuminate.
While Shields was an advocate of using life experiences in writing, she noted, “There are chapters in every life which are seldom read . . . and certainly not aloud.”Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend by clicking the g+1 button below.
Words Are Our Life
“Words are our life. We are human because we use language. So I think we are less human when we use less language.” – Carol Shields
Born in the U.S. on this date in 1935, Carol Shields grew up in America but spent much of her adult life in Canada and eventually had dual citizenship. She was a full-time writing professor, novelist, playwright and short story writer and won both the Pulitzer Prize and Canada’s equivalent, The Governor General’s Award for her novel The Stone Diaries. She is the only writer to ever win both awards for the same book. She died from cancer in 2003.
Shields short story collections, including Various Miracles and Dressing Up for the Carnival, also were much-honored and are part of the Collected Stories of Carol Shieldspublished after her death. Her nonfiction book on author Jane Austin also won several major awards. And her plays, particularly "Departures and Arrivals" and "Thirteen Hands" have been performed countless times by amateur and professional theaters around the globe.
To see more of this remarkable woman’s thoughts and advice on writing, check out her son Nicholas’s recent book Startle and Illuminate.
While Shields was an advocate of using life experiences in writing, she noted, “There are chapters in every life which are seldom read . . . and certainly not aloud.”Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend by clicking the g+1 button below.
June 2, 2018
Love & Gardening, Poetic Muses
“The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul.”– Alfred Austin
Born on May 30, 1835, Austin served for many years as Britain’s Poet Laureate, beginning in 1896. Known for his genuine and intimate love of nature, his books The Garden That I love and In Veronica's Gardenbrought him much acclaim for their open-air flavor and orderly charm.
Austin also wrote love poems, often to or about his wife Hester, who he met after first seeing her photograph while traveling abroad. Engaged after just two meetings, they were constant companions for the last 50 years of his life and she became his primary proofreader, assistant, and muse. For Saturday’s Poem, here is Austin’s, Love’s BlindnessNow do I know that Love is blind, for I
Can see no beauty on this beauteous earth,
No life, no light, no hopefulness, no mirth,
Pleasure nor purpose, when thou art not nigh.
Thy absence exiles sunshine from the sky,
Seres Spring's maturity, checks Summer's birth,
Leaves linnet's pipe as sad as plover's cry,
And makes me in abundance find but dearth.
But when thy feet flutter the dark, and thou
With orient eyes dawnest on my distress,
Suddenly sings a bird on every bough,
The heavens expand, the earth grows less and less,
The ground is buoyant as the ether now,
And all looks lovely in thy loveliness.
Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend by clicking the g+1 button below.
June 1, 2018
Good Notes Can Lead To Memoirs
“Most memoir writers will tell you that the hardest part of writing a memoir isn't what to include, but what to leave out.” – Kathleen Flinn
A native of Michigan, Flinn – who was born on this date in 1967 – is a memoirist, a journalist, and a chef, perhaps best known for her New York Times bestseller The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry. After earning a degree in journalism from Columbia College in Chicago, she wrote for newspapers and magazines in a number of states and nationally, including time as an obituary writer in Sarasota, Fla. That experience was – in a way – her first experience writing “memoirs.”
It was also at that time that she started thinking about attending culinary school at the world-famous Le Cordon Bleu and her book is the first to provide an in-depth look at attending and graduating from the famed Paris culinary school. To date, it has been translated into nine languages and sold in more than 60 countries. But, she said, when she thinks about her writing, it usually comes back to her time on the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
“I didn’t realize it at the time, but writing obituaries was one of best jobs that I've ever had. After all, it's the only time that someone will ever laminate my work and put it in their Bible. Plus, let's be honest, writing obits in Sarasota is a very busy job. The old saying was that old people lived in Miami, but their parents lived in Sarasota.” Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend by clicking the g+1 button below.
May 31, 2018
Count Stars, Study The Clouds
“If you want to lose 40 pounds, you order salad instead of fries. If you want to be a better friend, you take the phone call instead of screening it. If you want to write a novel, you sit down and write a single paragraph. It's scary to make major changes, but we usually have enough courage to take the next right step.”– Regina Brett
Born on this date in 1956, Brett is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for her newspaper commentary, an inspirational speaker, and also the author of both books and short stories.
Brett’s first – and bestselling – book grew out of her work as a columnist for The Cleveland Plain Dealer. Those columns, entitled "50 Life Lessons,” became some of the most distributed columns she has written, appearing on blogs as well as social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook. Often misidentified as a 90-year-old woman, Brett has now taken those "50 Life Lessons" columns and adapted them as chapters in that bestselling book, God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life's Little Detours.
One of those is worth sharing as we head into our first summer month, advice for writers and readers alike. “Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy, she said. “To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. Or to sit on a branch and study the clouds.” Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend by clicking the g+1 button below.
May 30, 2018
Contemplating Life Experiences
“Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience. “ – Randolph Bourne
Bourne, a progressive writer and intellectual born on this date in 1886, is best known for his anti-war essays, especially his unfinished work "The State," discovered after his death in 1918. Harmed by a forceps birth that left him with facial and back deformities, he was susceptible to debilitating diseases, perhaps hastening his death during the Spanish Flu pandemic.
Bourne graduated from Columbia University and immediately embarked on “…a literary career of startling brilliancy,” said Floyd Dell of The New Republic, a regular publisher of Bourne’s essays. His writings have been influential in shaping postmodern ideas of cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Dos Passos eulogized Bourne in 1919, part of his prize-winning U.S.A. trilogy. And, the Randolph Bourne Institute, which has access to many of his works, seeks to honor Bourne's memory by promoting a noninterventionist foreign policy for the United States as the best way of fostering a peaceful, more prosperous world.
Bourne was known for a generous spirit and ability to form lasting friendships, even with those with whom he disagreed. “Friendships,” he said, “are fragile things, and require as much handling as any other fragile and precious thing.” Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend by clicking the g+1 button below.
May 29, 2018
Writing Success By Exploring 'The Why?'
“Any form of media is an opportunity to be a mirror and reflection of what we are experiencing more in the details of our life.” – Mara Brock Akil
Brock Akil, who celebrated her 48th birthday this past week, has been a trailblazer for black women, making her impact as an award-winning television writer and producer, including creating the highly successful BET show Being Mary Jane. That show centers on the personal and professional life of a successful black broadcaster in L.A. Her writing for the show has earned her both Outstanding Screenplay and Outstanding Writing in a Dramatic Series awards. In January, she and her husband Salim Akil also created the show Black Lightning, based on the DC Comics Black Lightning superhero series, for the CW Network
A screenwriter for more than 20 years, Brock Akil started her career as a journalist after graduating with a journalism degree from Northwestern and credits journalistic writing as the key to her success.
“I often attribute my screenwriting to journalism because they drill in the who, what, when, where and why - but we really need to land on that why,” she said. “That's what I've been exploring in my writing for many years.” Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend by clicking the g+1 button below.
May 28, 2018
Books - Mankind's Greatest Machine
“Read. The book is still the greatest manmade machine of all – not the car, not the TV, not the computer or the smartphone...” – Ken Burns
Born in 1953, Burns is the creator of some of our most resounding and haunting film series on such topics like The Civil War, World War II and The Vietnam War. He also is winner of The Steinbeck Prize for his life’s work. On this Memorial Day, I think it’s fitting to share some of Burns’ words, taken from a Commencement Speech given at Washington University in 2015. What he said then, including the quote above, resonates even more today.
“Do not allow our social media to segregate us into ever smaller tribes and clans, fiercely and sometimes appropriately loyal to our group, but each also capable of metastasizing into profound distrust of the other,” he said.
“Convince your government that the real threat, as Lincoln knew, comes from within. Governments always forget that, too. Do not let your government outsource honesty, transparency or candor. Do not let your government outsource democracy.”
“Insist that we support science and the arts, especially the arts. They have nothing to do with the actual defense of the country – they just make the country worth defending.”Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend by clicking the g+1 button below.
May 26, 2018
Specializing in the Impossible
“What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.”– Theodore Roethke
Poet and writer James Dickey once named Roethke (born on May 25, 1908) as the greatest of all American poets. “I don't see anyone else that has the kind of deep, gut vitality that Roethke's got,” Dickey said. “Whitman was a great poet, but he's no competition for Roethke.”
Roethke won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book The Waking and shared his many talents both through his writing and as a longtime teacher of aspiring writers. His legacy, in addition to inspiring and training generations of students, is a diverse and lyrical body of poetry. For Saturday’s Poem, here is the title poem from his extraordinary book. The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend by clicking the g+1 button below.
Secializing in the Impossible
“What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.”– Theodore Roethke
Poet and writer James Dickey once named Roethke (born on May 25, 1908) as the greatest of all American poets. “I don't see anyone else that has the kind of deep, gut vitality that Roethke's got,” Dickey said. “Whitman was a great poet, but he's no competition for Roethke.”
Roethke won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book The Waking and shared his many talents both through his writing and as a longtime teacher of aspiring writers. His legacy, in addition to inspiring and training generations of students, is a diverse and lyrical body of poetry. For Saturday’s Poem, here is the title poem from his extraordinary book. The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend by clicking the g+1 button below.
