Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 51

A Writer's Moment: 'The weeding is the hard part'

A Writer's Moment: 'The weeding is the hard part':   “I've never really had any trouble coming up with ideas; they just grow, like weeds. The weeding is the hard part.”  – Stuart Woods ...

'The weeding is the hard part'

 

“I've never really had any troublecoming up with ideas; they just grow, like weeds. The weeding is the hardpart.” –Stuart Woods

 

Born in Georgia on Jan. 9, 1938Woods authored nearly 100 books, including more than 75 featuring his larger-than-lifedetective-turned-lawyer-investigator Stone Barrington.  

 

A University of Georgia grad(majoring in Sociology), he started writing as a journalist then turned toadvertising for many years before moving to England and Ireland to “explorelife, try sailing, and work on a novel.” Instead he wrote a successful guidebook to country restaurants, inns andhotels.

 

After returning to the States hewrote his first novel, Chief, after finding a police chief’s badge inhis grandmother's home. The badge, which had belonged to his grandfather, wasstained with blood and pockmarked by buckshot. After further exploring the story behind the badge he wrote the novelthat jumpstarted his creative writing career. The book, published in 1981, was made into a television series, won hima “best first novel” award from the Mystery Writers of America, and put him on awriting path from which he never wavered. He began his Stone Barrington series with 1991’s New York Deadand then released several Barrington books a year until his death in 2022.

 

“I can write anywhere,” he saidabout his ability to continually turn out books in the series.  “All I need is a couple of hours of solitudeand a computer, and I can write a chapter.”

A Writer's Moment: 'At least get off the ground'

A Writer's Moment: 'At least get off the ground':   “Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at the sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off...

'At least get off the ground'

 

“Mama exhorted her children atevery opportunity to 'jump at the sun.' We might not land on the sun, but atleast we would get off the ground.” –Zora Neale Hurston

 

Born in Alabama on this date in1891, Hurston was a folklorist, anthropologist and one of the best-known Blackwriters and dramatists of the 20th century. 

 

A graduate of Howard University sheco-founded the school’s student newspaper, then moved on to Barnard College inNew York as the sole Black student.  In the mid-1920s she became oneof the key “writing members” of the famed Harlem Renaissance, an intellectualand cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion,literature, theater, politics and scholarship.

 

A master of the flashback style,Hurston wrote more than 50 short stories, plays and essays – most exploring orsharing the African-American experience from the last part of the 19th centurythrough the first decades of the 20th. 

 

She also authored 4 novels, led by the award-winning Their Eyes Were Watching God, a seminal work inboth African-American and women's literature.   Time magazine includedthe 1937 novel in its 100 best English-language novels of the 20thcentury.  Hurston died in 1960 and in 2015 she was one of the first12 writers inducted into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame.

 

Noted for her meticulous research, she said,“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.”

A Writer's Moment: Providing readers with 'a sound and a voice'

A Writer's Moment: Providing readers with 'a sound and a voice':   “I don't think there was a particular book that made me want to write. They all did.     I always wanted to write.”  – Elizabeth Strou...

Providing readers with 'a sound and a voice'

 

“I don't think there was aparticular book that made me want to write. They all did.   Ialways wanted to write.” –Elizabeth Strout

 

Strout, who was born in Maine onthis date in 1956, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for OliveKitteridge, a terrific collection of connected short stories about awoman and her immediate family and friends living on the coast of Maine.  The book also was made into a multipleaward-winning HBO series.

 

Of course that’s not all thisgifted New Englander has produced since she had her first short story publishedin 1982.   A small town product, she mostly grew up in NewHampshire and Maine where her father was a science professor and her mother –who she said was a great inspiration for her writing – taught highschool. 

 

Strout has spent most of herwriting years in New York City, although she and husband James Tierney splittheir time between NYC and Maine where he is the former AttorneyGeneral.  She’s now authored 10 bestselling novels, including theinternational sensation My Name is Lucy Barton.  Her latest (just out in 2024) is Tell MeEverything.

 

“I'm writing for my ideal reader,for somebody who's willing to take the time, who's willing to get lost in a newworld, who's willing to do their part,” she said of her award-winningwork.  “But then I have to do my part and give them a sound and avoice that they believe in enough to keep going.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Poetry always remembers'

A Writer's Moment: 'Poetry always remembers':   “There are still many tribal cultures where poetry and song, there is just one word for them. There are other cultures with literacy where...

'Poetry always remembers'

 

“There are still many tribalcultures where poetry and song, there is just one word for them. There areother cultures with literacy where poetry and song are distinguished. Butpoetry always remembers that it has its origins in music.” – Edward Hirsch

 

Born in Chicago in Januaryof 1950, Hirsch is a multiple-award winning poet described as “elegant in both hiswriting and reading of poetry."  Among his many honors are a National Book Critics Circle Award; Guggenheimand National Endowment for the Arts grants; and a MacArthur “Genius”award.  The author of 10 books of poetry and 9 nonfiction books, he also has edited at least a dozen other volumes.  ForSaturday’s Poem, here is Hirsch’s,

 

                                   EarlySunday Morning

                               

I used to mock my father and hischums

                               for getting up early on Sunday morning
                               and drinking coffee at a local spot
                               but now I’m one of those chumps.

                              No one cares about my old humiliations
                              but they go on dragging through my sleep
                              like a string of empty tin cans rattling
                              behind an abandoned car.

                             It’s like this: just when you think
                             you have forgotten that red-haired girl
                             who left you stranded in a parking lot
                             forty years ago, you wake up

                             early enough to see her disappearing
                             around the corner of your dream
                             on someone else’s motorcycle
                             roaring onto the highway at sunrise.

                            And so now I’m sitting in a dimly lit
                            café   full of early morning risers
                            where the windows are covered with soot
                            and the coffee is warm and bitter.

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Writing what I wanted to read'

A Writer's Moment: 'Writing what I wanted to read': “The great thing about novels is that you can be as un-shy as you want to be.  I'm very polite in person. I don't want to talk about...

'Writing what I wanted to read'

“The great thingabout novels is that you can be as un-shy as you want to be.  I'm very polite inperson. I don't want to talk about startling or upsetting things with people.” – NicholsonBaker

 

Born in New YorkCity in January of 1957, Baker has written nearly two dozen books (both novels andnonfiction) and dozens of essays.   His writings range from poetry and literature to studies about library systems andtime manipulation and he has won numerous writing honors including a National BookCritics Circle Award, the International Hermann Hesse Prize, and a GuggenheimFellowship.

 

Baker studied atboth the Eastman School in Rochester, NY and Haverford College in Philadelphiawhere he began his writing career.  A fervent advocate for libraries’maintaining “physical copies” of books, manuscripts and old newspapers, heestablished the American Newspaper Repository to help insure that they wouldnot be destroyed.  For his ongoing efforts, he won the prestigiousJames Madison Freedom of Information Award.  

                                         

Among Baker’sbest-known works are Double-Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper,and Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II; The End ofCivilization.  His newest book is 2024’s Finding a Likeness:  How I Got Somewhat Better at Art.

 

He said he likesto write what he enjoys reading.   “(Each time) . . .What I wrote,” he said, “wasexactly what I wanted to read.”