Jack King's Blog, page 4

Role of Life’s Experiences in the Creative Process

“Spontaneity, freshness, courage and a thousand other advantagesinherent to youth [are] conducive” to creativity. However, “maturity andexperience — the world accumulated and assimilated in the author’s mind— allow him to convey human problems from a truly universalperspective. The writer in his adulthood, freed from the inseparableemotional interference of youth, with its naive drive to over-analyzeexperiences, desires, and frustrations, finds himself in the optimalposition to blend personal...

Literature as a Weapon

“Words matter. A society’s books and movies impact the world. Books, in particular were often internationally influential during the Cold War. …

The CIA funded the production and distribution of individual literary projects. …

Eric Bennett, a professor of English at Providence College and author of the forthcoming Workshops of Empire: Stegner, Engle and American Creative Writing During the Cold War, wrote that the CIA’s efforts produced lasting and potentially damaging effects.

According to B...

Are Today’s Writers Irrelevant?

Writers “can make an impact on the social and political life of the nation by using their reputations as thinkers and writers.” But, “When I look at the contemporary scene, it seems to me that writers make no impact at all.”

“Writing, I am afraid, has become a self-promoting activity. To see writers hankering for rewards is to lose faith in their ability to play any role beyond a selfish one. […]”

“…the mystique surrounding the writer has all but disappeared. Writers are now seen at so close...

Writers Can Make a Better World

“Literature is constructive as well as reflective, and there is certain power in this.

Novels rising from moments of conflict and hardship sharpen focus on the inequalities and struggles of those times.

… such narratives raise awareness of key social issues and potentially move the culture toward empathy, understanding, change – or else underscore unfortunate cultural resistance, the failure of those things to eventuate.

…writers and artists who direct their work toward the prevailing issues...

Readers – Agents of World Transformation

“In order to truly understand the perspectives of others different from us, we need something more than knowledge alone. We need compassion, empathy and desire to engage in social discourse.

Contrary to nonfiction books, fiction books are cherished for their form as a narrative art, which employs literary locution, syntax and its plot in a way that allows new perspectives to settle in. According to Jacques Rancière, a French philosopher and social activist, fiction is valuable “due to a new b...

Morally Impoverished American Literature

“Everything is contained in the American novel except ideas,” Philip Rahv wrote exasperatedly in 1940, just as the European novel achieved, in the hands of Musil and Mann, its intellectual apotheosis. Obsessed with private experience, American writers, Rahv charged, were uniquely indifferent “to ideas generally, to theories of value, to the wit of the speculative and problematical.”

Why was it, he wondered, that Dostoyevsky “appears to possess degrees of passion, conviction and engagement wit...

Less Obvious Benefits of Reading

“One study, which scanned the brains of reading people, found that reading provides exercise to 17 different brain regions, and increased density, extent and speed of brain-cell networks within the brain — essential for maintaining mental efficiency and brain health throughout life.

Other studies suggest that, after finishing a good novel, readers enjoy these effects for several days.

Other research shows that reading brings on relaxation. Reading for just six minutes can lower stress levels...

Real Writers Follow Their Rhythm

Writers… “we’re storytellers, craftsman. We do care deeply about language. We want our words to dance to a particular rhythm… One of the tools we use is repetition. Unfortunately, it’s the tool most despised by bad editors… English teachers, those non-writers responsible for teaching us how to write. It begins when they circle a word that appears a few times in a single paragraph and ask for an alternative…

English teachers who don’t practice the craft of writing — and that’s the vast majorit...

How the CIA Shaped Western Literary World

“During the Cold War, it was commonplace to draw the distinction between “totalitarian” and “free” societies by noting that only in the free ones could groups self-organize independently of the state. But many of the groups that made that argument [including literary magazines] were often covertly-sponsored instruments of state power, at least in part. Whether or not art and artists would have been more “revolutionary” in the absence of the CIA’s cultural work is a vexed question; what is cle...

Literary Creativity in Intrinsic Motivation

“A creative writer should be motivated by interest, challenge and satisfaction, and not by external pressures, otherwise he/she will fall by the wayside when external forces fade or when they cannot withstand the editorial pressure.

A renowned psychologist at Harvard University, in her research, invited art experts to assess the work of 29 professional artists.

Unknown to the experts was that each artist had been asked to submit 10 commissioned and 10 non-commissioned works. The experts rated...