Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 45

A Writer's Moment: 'The hardest thing I know'

A Writer's Moment: 'The hardest thing I know':   “Writing is the hardest thing I know, but it was the only thing I wanted to do. I wrote for 20 years and published nothing before my first...

A Writer's Moment: 'Strengthening to see your past'

A Writer's Moment: 'Strengthening to see your past':   “It's always good to go home. It's strengthening to see your past and know you have someplace to go where you're part of a peo...

'Strengthening to see your past'

 

“It'salways good to go home. It's strengthening to see your past and know you havesomeplace to go where you're part of a people.” – John Trudell

 

Borninto the Dakota Santee nation on this date in 1946, Trudell (who died in 2015) wasan author, poet, actor, musician and political activist who spent most of hiswriting life combining his poetry with traditional Native American music.

 

Aleading spokesperson for the American Indian Movement, Trudell said he felttruth came from the arts.  “When one lives in a society where peoplecan no longer rely on the institutions to tell them the truth,” hesaid, “the truth must come from culture and art.”

 

 For a look at some 25 years of Trudell’s powerfulwritings, check out the book Lines From a Mined Mind: The Words of JohnTrudell.  

 

Asan actor, Trudell performed in many movies, including Thunderheart, OnDeadly Ground and Smoke Signals.  He also served asadviser to the award-winning documentary Incident at Oglala, RobertRedford’s “real life” companion piece to the fictional Thunderheartand exploring the 1975 shooting of two FBI agents on South Dakota’s PineRidge Reservation. 

 

Awriter before he became a musician, Trudell once noted that “Every song I'veever written starts with the words.  I wantthe music to be . . . (an) extension of the feelings of the words, and not thewords being the emotional extension of the feeling of the music.”

 

'It's strengthening to see you past'

 

“It'salways good to go home. It's strengthening to see your past and know you havesomeplace to go where you're part of a people.” – John Trudell

 

Borninto the Dakota Santee nation on this date in 1946, Trudell (who died in 2015) wasan author, poet, actor, musician and political activist who spent most of hiswriting life combining his poetry with traditional Native American music.

 

Aleading spokesperson for the American Indian Movement, Trudell said he felttruth came from the arts.  “When one lives in a society where peoplecan no longer rely on the institutions to tell them the truth,” hesaid, “the truth must come from culture and art.”

 

 For a look at some 25 years of Trudell’s powerfulwritings, check out the book Lines From a Mined Mind: The Words of JohnTrudell.  

 

Asan actor, Trudell performed in many movies, including Thunderheart, OnDeadly Ground and Smoke Signals.  He also served asadviser to the award-winning documentary Incident at Oglala, RobertRedford’s “real life” companion piece to the fictional Thunderheartand exploring the 1975 shooting of two FBI agents on South Dakota’s PineRidge Reservation. 

 

Awriter before he became a musician, Trudell once noted that “Every song I'veever written starts with the words.  I wantthe music to be . . . (an) extension of the feelings of the words, and not thewords being the emotional extension of the feeling of the music.”

 

A Writer's Moment: 'It's strengthening to see you past'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's strengthening to see you past':   “It's always good to go home. It's strengthening to see your past and know you have someplace to go where you're part of a peo...

'Hungering for their stories'

 

“Readers are hungry to have theirstories in the world, to see mirrors of themselves if the stories are aboutpeople like them, and to have windows if the stories are about people who havebeen historically absent in literature.” –Jacqueline Woodson 

 

Born in Columbus, OH in February of1963, Woodson has built her writing career around strong, emotional andoptimistic stories, especially for young people.  Woodson said shedislikes books that do not offer hope and often uses that philosophy in herwriting.  "If you love the people you create,” shesaid, “you can see the hope there." 

     

Woodson grew up in South Carolinaand Brooklyn, NY and started writing in Middle School.   Amongher best-known books are the Newbery Honor winners Miracle’s Boys,After Tupac and D Foster, and Brown Girl Dreaming (forwhich she also won the National Book Award).  

 

She’s written for all ages,authoring more than three dozen books ranging from Childen’s to adult and winningnearly as many major awards, including a MacArthur Foundation (Genius) Grant in2020.   Her most recent title is The Year WeLearned to Fly.

 

A one-time Young People's PoetLaureate and National Ambassador for Young People's Literature – both named bythe Library of Congress – she said she consciously writes for a youngeraudience.

 

“I love writing for young people.It's the literature that was most important to me, the stories that shaped meand informed my own journey as a writer.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Hungering for their stories'

A Writer's Moment: 'Hungering 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 hav...

'Never bored and always looking forward'

 

“I have never been bored an hour inmy life. I get up every morning wondering what new strange glamorous thing isgoing to happen and it happens at fairly regular intervals.” –William Allen White

 

Born in Emporia, KS on this date in1868, White became America’s most renowned small town newspapereditor.   A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and bestsellingauthor, White became the spokesperson for Middle America and in the processmade Emporia a “must stop” for politicos and celebrities seeking his counsel.

When I was researching mynovel And The Wind Whispered, I was startled to find that Whiteand his wife Sallie traveled to the Black Hills to spend time in Hot Springs,the setting for my book.   It was therethat he first met Theodore Roosevelt – and thus their meeting and interactionsbecame an integral part of my tale’s narrative.   

 

After my book’s publication, eventhough it is a historical novel and not a history book, per se’, I was invitedto speak at Emporia State University and share my findings about the Whites’ 1894trip to the Black Hills and how that became part of my story.   It was shortlyafter that trip that he purchased The Emporia Gazette, which thenbecame his “home base” for the writing he did for the next 50 years. 

 

Shortly before his death in 1944,White wrote how grateful he was to have lived and worked in America.  He said he looked forward to every dayregardless of what it might bring.  “I am not afraid of tomorrow,” hesaid, “for I have seen yesterday, and I love today!”

A Writer's Moment: 'Never bored and always looking forward'

A Writer's Moment: 'Never bored and always looking forward':   “I have never been bored an hour in my life. I get up every morning wondering what new strange glamorous thing is going to happen and it h...

'A bridge across our fears'

 

"Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives.  It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before."  Audre Lorde

Born in February of 1934, Lorde’spowerful poems primarily deal with civil rights, feminism, and Black femaleidentity.   She also wrote and spoke eloquently about battlingcancer, a disease from which she died at age 58.    For Saturday’s Poem here is Lorde’s,

 

Coping

Ithas rained for five days
running
the world is
a round puddle
of sunless water
where small islands
are only beginning
to cope
a young boy
in my garden
is bailing out water
from his flower patch
when I ask him why
he tells me
young seeds that have not seen sun
forget
and drown easily.