Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 60

'Every writer's foremost requirement'

 

“Over the years, my students influenced megreatly, and I’ve learned many lessons from

them. I have an immense amount of respectfor them, and I think that respect for your

audience is the foremost requirement foranyone who wants to write.” – Susan Campbell

Bartoletti

 

Born in Pennsylvania in November of 1958, Bartolettiwas a writing teacher for 20 years

before turning to writing herself, inspired by thejunior high students she was teaching at

the time. Working with kids also gave her many of thetraits and patterns she uses in

developing her characters.  “I felt immense satisfaction in watching mystudents grow as

writers and I wanted to practice what Ipreached.”  

 

After publishing her first short story in 1989, shewrote her first children’s book, Silver at

Night, in 1992. Since then she's authored 15  more books, both fiction and nonfiction,

including Growing Up in Coal Country, Dancing WithDziadziu, and Hitler Youth:

Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow,winner of the Newbery Medal.

 

The winner of numerous other awards including theGolden Kite Award for Nonfiction,

and the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, she stillteaches but now her students are

Master’s degree candidates in various writing programsas well as enrollees in writing

workshops across the nation.  

 

Character development remains at the heart of everypiece that she does and what she

stresses to her writingstudents.   “When I create a character, it happens in layers,”she

said.  “The more I write and revise, thebetter I understand my characters.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Every writer's foremost requirement'

A Writer's Moment: 'Every writer's foremost requirement':   “Over the years, my students influenced me greatly, and I’ve learned many lessons from them. I have an immense amount of respect for the...

A Writer's Moment: The 'surprising' act of writing

A Writer's Moment: The 'surprising' act of writing:    “The act of writing surprises me all the time. A miraculous thing happens when you have an idea and you want to convert it into words... ...

The 'surprising' act of writing

 

 “The act of writingsurprises me all the time. A miraculous thing happens when you have an idea andyou want to convert it into words... and then you start to create a work ofart,and that's another miracle, and it remains mysterious to the writer, or tothis writer anyway.” – Janette Turner Hospital

Born in Australia on thisdate in 1942, Turner Hospital has spent most of her adult life in either Canadaor the U.S.   “All my writing, in a sense, revolves around themediation of one culture (or subculture) to another,” she said.  Best knownfor her novels, she also is an accomplished and productive short story writerand has won numerous awards in both genres.

One of Turner Hospital'smost accomplished novels is Borderline, set on the “borderline”of Canada andthe U.S. While primarily a thriller, the story also focuses on where to drawthe "borderline" between intrusions into others' lives and the responsibilityfor them.       

 Among her manyawards are Canada’s Seal Award, the CDC Literary Prize, and the AustralianNational Book Council Award.   Also a teacher of both literature andcreative writing, she has been writer-in-residence at major universities in Australia,Canada, England and the U.S. and recently has been Visiting Writer-in-Residenceat the University of South Carolina.

“The themes ofdislocation and connection are constant in my work,” she said.  “So arethe themes of moral choice and moral courage. I am always putting my charactersinto situations of acute moral dilemma . . . to find out what they will do.”

A Writer's Moment: 'A slice of the imagination'

A Writer's Moment: 'A slice of the imagination':  

'A slice of the imagination'

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Waiting for that music'

A Writer's Moment: 'Waiting for that music':   “Poems have a different music from ordinary language, and every poem has a different kind of music of necessity.  That's, in a way, th...

'Waiting for that music'

 

“Poemshave a different music from ordinary language, and every poem has a differentkind of music of necessity.  That's, in a way, the hardest thingabout writing poetry; waiting for that music, and sometimes you never know ifit's going to come.” –C.K. Williams

Bornin New Jersey in November of 1936, poet, critic and translator Charles Kenneth“C.K.,” Williams won nearly every major poetry award including the 1987National Book Critics Circle Award for Flesh and Blood, the 2000Pulitzer Prize for Repair, the 2003 National Book Awardfor The Singing, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetimeachievement, awarded shortly before his death in 2015.

Williamsonce noted, “When you begin to write poems because you love language,because you love poetry, the writing of poems becomes incredibly pleasurableand addictive.”   ForSaturday’s Poem, here is Williams’

SILENCE

The heron methodicallypacing like an old-time librarian down the stream through the patch of woods atthe end of the field, those great wings tucked in as neatly as clean sheets, isso intent on keeping her silence, extracting one leg, bending it like a paperclip, placing it back, then bending the other, the first again, that herconcentration radiates out into the listening world, and everything obedientlyhushes, the ragged grasses that rise from the water, the light-sliced vault ofsparkling aspens.

 

Then abruptly a flurry, aflapping, her lifting from the gravitied earth, her swoop out over the field,her banking and settling on a lightning-stricken oak, such a gangly, unwieldycontraption up there in the barkless branches, like a still Adam's-appledadolescent; then the cry, cranky, coarse, and wouldn't the waiting world laughaloud if it could with glee?

A well-balanced approach

 “I make money using mybrains and lose money listening to my heart. But in the long run my booksbalance pretty well.” – Kate Seredy

 

Born in Hungary on Nov.10, 1896, Seredy won the prestigious Newbery Medal for best children’s book forThe White Stag, the Newbery Honor (runner-up) twice, and the Caldecott Medalfor Best Children’s Book Illustration for The Christmas Anna Angel.  She also won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Awardfor The White Stag.  

 

After growing up inHungary and spending time in Paris, especially during World War I, Seredyemigrated to the U.S., ran a children’s bookshop and started her career as achildren’s book illustrator.  Encouraged by editor May Massee towrite down bits and pieces of her “growing up” years, she wrote the children’snovel The Good Master, published in 1936 and winner of a NewberyHonor for best book.

 

She wrote 12 children's books and illustrated dozens more, dedicating her last book, Lazy Tinka, toMassee.  Seredy’s papers and illustrations are mostly part of the MayMassee Collection at Emporia State University and I had a chance to see themwhen I spoke to writing classes and then presented as part of the ESU Writers’Series.  It’s a wonderful collection andI highly recommend visiting the school to view it.

 

“For yesterday and forall tomorrows,” she said, “we dance the best we know.”

 

A Writer's Moment: A well-balanced approach

A Writer's Moment: A well-balanced approach:   “I make money using my brains and lose money listening to my heart. But in the long run my books balance pretty well.”  – Kate Seredy   ...