Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 499

Chronicling others' lives

“No one sits on the stoop when she's a kid and thinks, 'I want to be a biographer when I grow up.” – Stacy Schiff
But, that career path has been a good one for Schiff, who won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Vera, a biography of Vera Nabokov, wife and muse of Vladimir Nabokov.  She was also a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Saint-Exupéry: A Biography about French writer and adventurer Antoine de Saint Exupéry.
A native of Massachusetts, Schiff (whose birthday was earlier this week) also has won a number of other awards for her biographical works on Benjamin Franklin and Cleopatra, and this summer she was presented with the Newberry Library Award for her body of writing.  But, despite her many awards, she said that biographers, including herself, aren’t always objective in their work.
“Oh, I don't think there is ever objective biography,” she insisted.  “Our vision of our subject is always shaped by who we are. So I do, of course, think the biographer's view is always something to keep in mind.”
Stacy Schiff
[image error]

Share A Writer’s Moment by clicking on the g+1 link below.

A writing lifetime of achievement

“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 happens at fairly regular intervals.” – William Allen White
Newspaper editor, politician, author, and leader of the Progressive movement, White—who along with his wife Sallie are part of my cast of characters in the book And The Wind Whispered – became the iconic spokesman for middle America.  Almost from the day he took over the paper in 1895 until his death in 1944, he was writing as a champion of the “average” American, building his newspaper, his own reputation, and his community in the process.   With his warm sense of humor, articulate editorial pen, and commonsense approach to life, White soon became known throughout the country and the writing world, earning a Pulitzer Prize for himself and his newspaper in the process. His Gazetteeditorials were widely reprinted; he wrote syndicated stories on politics; and did biographies of Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge. "What's the Matter With Kansas?" and "Mary White" — a beautiful tribute to his 16-year-old daughter on her accidental death in 1921— were his best-known editorials, but many others helped shape middle American life and national politics.  “Present the facts fairly and honestly,” he said, “(and) truth will take care of itself.” [image error] William Allen White
So influential was White that every President from Theodore to Franklin Roosevelt stopped in Emporia for his counsel, and Franklin asked him to lead a national effort to generate support for the Allies in 1940 while the U.S. was still officially “neutral.” 
During his lifetime, he had 22 books published and along with longtime friend Dorothy Canfield, he founded the Book of the Month Club, a great boon for readers and writers alike.  Today, both the University of Kansas School of Journalism and the Emporia State University Library are named in his honor.
 [image error]Visiting the Emporia Gazette in the heart of Emporia, KSPhoto by Susan Jorgensen


Share A Writer’s Moment by clicking on the g+1 link below.

Reading for pleasure ... and insights

“If I were to die thinking that I'd written three poems that people might read after me, I would feel that I hadn't lived in vain. Great poets might expect the whole body of their work, but most of us - well, I would settle for a handful.” – Andrew Motion
Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009, Motion’s poems are known for the insightful way in which they explore loss and desolation.   He has been a champion for poetry readings and supporting poets in the reading of their own work.  Toward that end he founded “Poetry Archive,” an online resource of poems and audio recordings of poets reading their own works. 
Motion, whose 63rdbirthday was yesterday, is also the author of several acclaimed biographies including The Lamberts: George, Constant and Kit, which won a Somerset Maugham Award; and Keats: A Biography.
“Keats writes better about poems than anybody I've ever read,” Motion said.  “The things that he says about what he wants his own poems to be are the ideals that I share.”
Diving By Andrew MotionThe moment I tire
of difficult sand-grains
and giddy pebbles,
I roll with the punch
of a shrivelling wave
and am cosmonaut
out past the fringe
of a basalt ledge
in a moony sea-hall
spun beyond blue.
Faint but definite
heat of the universe
flutters my skin;
quick fish apply
as something to love,
what with their heads
of gong-dented gold;
plankton I push
an easy way through
would be dust or dew
in the world behind
if that mattered at all,
which is no longer true,
with its faces and cries.
Share A Writer’s Moment by clicking on the g+1 link below.

Rogers the writer

“A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.” – Will Rogers

Rogers, who appears in my novel And The Wind Whispered as a 15-year-old, was one of America’s most beloved figures.  As I’ve been traveling on behalf of the book, I found myself near Claremore, OK, the location of the Will Rogers Memorial Museum.  Thus, a stop there – and at his nearby birthplace home on the Rogers’ Dog Iron Ranch near Lake Oologah – became not only a “possibility” but a “requirement.”
The two sites are amazing, and I learned so much more about Rogers the writer during the visits.
He wrote more than 4,000 nationally syndicated newspaper columns.  His column was carried by more than 600 newspapers and he rarely missed the deadline for turning in a story, saying that among all the things he was doing – and that was a lot – his writing was at the top of his list.
In addition to his columns, he wrote 20 books and did a lot of radio commentary (in addition to a regular radio show) making him one of the nation’s leading writers in the first half of the 20th century.
All told, books and columns combined, Rogers wrote more than 4 million words.  Will’s columns reached a potential audience of 40 million readers, and all of his books were major sellers as his written words spread wisdom and reflections that remain timely into the 21stcentury.
 [image error][image error]  Visiting the Will Rogers home, Dog Iron Ranch near Oologah Lake, OK, and “chatting” with Will (our connection wasn’t all that great) in the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore, OK.   This portrait depicts a stack of just a few of the newspapers that carried his column, and in his hand is copy he’s prepared and is “calling in” to a transcriber.    – Photos by Susan Jorgensen

Share A Writer’s Moment by clicking on the g+1 link below.

Following those writing rivers

“To understand and reconnect with our stories, the stories of the ancestors, is to build our identities.   We all belong to an ancient identity. Stories are the rivers that take us there.”– Frank Delaney
Noted for his attention to the basics and basis of writing and writing style, Irish novelist, journalist and broadcaster Delaney is the author of New York Times best-sellers Ireland, and the non-fiction book Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea.
A great essayist, Delaney’s work has been published in many of the leading newspapers in the United States, the UK and Ireland, including on the Op-ed pages of The New York Times.  He also is a frequent public speaker and has been a contributor and guest on a variety of National Public Radio programs. 
Frank Delaney[image error]
As for possible writers to emulate and why, he noted, '”The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald remains the most perfect novel that has ever come out of the United States. Everything in the book moves as it should, in the manner of a piece by Bach or Mozart.  (And) If you need proof of how the oral relates to the written, consider that many great novelists, including Joyce and Hemingway, never submitted a piece of work without first reading it aloud.”
Wise words and great advice.  Happy writing!

Share A Writer’s Moment by clicking on the g+1 link below.

The secret to being a writer

“The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work” – Augusten Burroughs
Perhaps best known for his bestselling memoir Running with Scissors.  Burroughs' essays and feature writing, often seen in such publications as The New York Times, House and Garden, and Attitude, focuses on subjects such as advertising, psychiatrists, religious families, and home shopping networks.  A former advertising specialist, he has a knack for writing great titles, including those for his books.  Among them are Dry (about overcoming alcoholism); Magical Thinking, Possible Side Effects and Sellevision. 
For a time, he said everything he was writing seemed to be rejected out of hand, but he noted, “As a writer, you can't allow yourself the luxury of being discouraged and giving up when you are rejected, either by agents or publishers. You absolutely must plow forward.”
But Burroughs, the son of renowned poet Margaret Robison and whose 49th birthday is today, perservered.   “I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books, eventually I would write something worthy of publication. I understood I might be in my forties or my fifties or even my sixties, but I felt confident that it would happen.”  Augusten Burroughs[image error]
Share A Writer’s Moment by clicking on the g+1 link below.

Stopping in Santa Fe

“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.” – Georgia O'Keefe
 [image error]  
Posing by a Georgia O’Keefe (above) and at the San Miguel Mission, with a view of the altar (below).  Built about 350 years ago, the mission is the oldest church in the U.S., dating to the early 1600s. 
 [image error][image error]

A stop at the Georgia O’Keefe museum would make a trip to Santa Fe, NM, worthwhile in its own right, but of course there’s so much more to do and see there, including 300-year-old Spanish churches, adobe homes, the terrific Santa Fe marketplace ...  [image error][image error][image error] Along the market square in Santa Fe
 and a surprising “off-the-beaten-path” find -- Pecos National Park.  Located 26 miles from Santa Fe, Pecos is on the eastern entrance of the Glorieta Pass where for centuries people used the pass as a natural route between the Rio Grande Valley and the plains.  The ruins of ancient Native American villages and walls, and remains of a massive Spanish church coupled with the natural beauty of the landscape provides for breathtaking memories.
 [image error]
 [image error][image error]
 [image error][image error]

Share A Writer’s Moment by clicking on the g+1 link below.

Along another road less traveled

“There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been!” – Percy Bysshe Shelley
[image error]

Our current trek into New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma began with a swing through the Spanish Peaks in Southern Colorado, brilliant and subdued at the same time with tones ranging from bright reds and yellows to burnt oranges, rust browns, and the brilliant blue and white of the Western sky on a perfect autumn day.
Oh, and then there was the surprising find of the 7th Street Deli off the beaten path in Walsenburg, Colo., the kind of place you hope to “drop in” to while traveling, especially on a trip that has no set parameters.  A tiny, nondescript doorway leads to a seating area with 5 tables, a cooler/countertop combination, and a sandwich-making area populated by a chef with 35 years’ experience and an exuberant waiter who makes you feel as welcome as if you were stopping by the home of old friends.
 [image error] Lunch included conversation with a young woman coming in for a sandwich to go who was gushing with stories about a recent trip to Albuquerque, NM, to watch 600 hot air balloons rise at dawn.  We left filled with both a delicious meal and notes written down on a napkin for planning a future trip to Albuquerque.
 [image error][image error]The Spanish Peaks area -- Photos by Susan Jorgensen
Share A Writer’s Moment by clicking on the g+1 link below.

Helping create 'the moral high ground'

“I get a lot of moral guidance from reading novels, so I guess I expect my novels to offer some moral guidance, but they're not blueprints for action, ever.”– Ursula K. Le Guin
Le Guin, who has sandwiched a terrific writing career around raising a family and writing about and supporting dozens of causes that in their own right have created the moral high ground about which she speaks, turns 85 today.
Primarily a writer of science fiction and fantasy, Le Guin has authored novels, children's books, and short stories, and been cited as a major influence on other successful writers like Salman Rushdie, David Mitchell, and Neil Gaiman.  Her writing has been awarded the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award and World Fantasy Award – each more than once – and in 2014 she was honored with the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. 
As far as writing science fiction goes, she said, “The task of science fiction is not to predict the future.  Rather, it contemplates possible futures. Writers may find the future appealing precisely because it can't be known, a black box where ‘anything at all can be said to happen without fear of contradiction from a native. The future is a safe, sterile laboratory for trying out ideas in, a means of thinking about reality, a method.’”
And, a big part of her success, she said, is due to the fact that she never preaches to or at her readers.  “I don't write tracts, I write novels. I'm not a preacher, I'm a writer of fiction.”
Ursula K. Le Guin[image error]


Share A Writer’s Moment by clicking on the g+1 link below.

For reading ... all are welcome!

“Free and fair access to books - to reading - is a right and one we should all fight for.” – Kate Mosse
An English novelist, non-fiction and short story writer and broadcaster, Mosse (born on this day in 1961) is best known for her 2005 novel Labyrinth, which has been translated into more than 37 languages.   Mosse first got involved in the writing world as a publishing assistant, then editor and  journalist before switching over to managing a regional theatre.  It was while serving in that role that she began writing creatively and came out with Labyrinth.
Although best known for her adventure and ghost fiction, usually inspired by real history, Mosse's non-fiction, particularly Becoming A Mother and The House: Behind the Scenes at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, also have been best sellers and television specials.
 [image error]Kate Mosse
“Usually I decide on what it is I'm writing next by the books I'm reading,” she said.  A champion for the free library system, she has done many fund-raisers and written on their behalf.
  “The message is clear: libraries matter,” she said.  “Their solid presence at the heart of our towns sends the proud signal that everyone - whoever they are, whatever their educational background, whatever their age or their needs - is welcome.”


Share A Writer’s Moment by clicking on the g+1 link below.