Writing

We Fuses

March 14, 2013

. Julia gave me a splendid gift for my birthday today. When I was a very young man in Manhattan, in my early and later twenties, I would pour over and plow through the book reviews and journals – all the epistles from the church of literature –  including, deliciously each Sunday, the New York Times Book [...]

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Taking Stock, Taking a Leave

March 4, 2013

. The first post on this blog is dated December 2, 2008, so I have been blogging as of the date of this post, four years, three months and two days. I began when Julia and I hit the road during a sabbatical year, traveling the country in our motor home researching Native American life. [...]

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Writing Paradise

October 25, 2012

. I learned at an early adult age, with only minor but memorable pain, not to hero-worship. When we lionize people, we tend to forget the natural inclination of the lion to consume the person. I prefer admiration. Admiration works from the muck up. While hero worship sets up the faithful for a fall, admiration [...]

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Writers Write

October 13, 2010

“Oh! It is only a novel! … only some work in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.” Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (1818) Related articles Howard Jacobson on taking comic novels [...]

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Sad Red Reading

September 25, 2010

Along with the new blog look, you’ll find a revitalized, now to be regularly updated, Sad Red Reading feature over at the right of the page, not that far from the top. There I link to some favored writings reflecting the varied interests of the blog: literary, political, more widely cultural and philosophical. Right now [...]

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Writers Write

August 23, 2010

“My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel – it is, above all, to make you see. That – and no more, and it is everything.” Joseph Conrad, “Preface” to The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897) * * * [...]

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The Five Most Misconceived Criteria for Determining the Fifteen Most Overrated Contemporary American Writers

August 12, 2010

Yes, that may be the longest title I have ever placed above a piece of my writing, but only the first six of the words are mine. The remainder is appropriated from Anis Shivani’s post the other day at Huffington Post. It’s gotten a lot of reaction, elsewhere, and, as I write, over 1650 comments [...]

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Writers Write

August 9, 2010

“Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.” Gore Vidal, Réalités, August 1966 —– “Writing doe not exclude the full life. It demands it.” Katherine Anne Porter, from On Writing the Short Story, by Hallie Burnett —– “Literature must [...]

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Writers Write

August 3, 2010

“I live with the people I create and it has always made my essential loneliness less keen.” Carson McCullers, The Square Root of Wonderful, 1958 ——— Related articles by Zemanta Rattlestick unveils slate (variety.com) Book Review: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories by Carson McCullers (blogcritics.org) The Girl Who Was JT LeRoy [...]

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Writers Write

August 2, 2010

“For me writing – the only possible writing – is just simply the conversion of nervous force into phrases. Joseph Conrad, Letter to H. G. Wells, 3 November 1903 ——– Related articles by Zemanta 10 Reasons and Cures for Writer’s Block (onecoolsitebloggingtips.com) Share Tweet Subscribe to comments on this post Email

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Writers Write

July 28, 2010

“You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,’ but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.” Adventures of Huckleberry Finn * * * “The difference between the right word and the almost-right [...]

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Writers Write

July 27, 2010

“You do the writing as a debt of honor” Anne Lamott, Interview, Internet Roundtable 22 November 1994 * * * “If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is worth any number of old ladies.” William Faulkner, Interview (pdf), Paris Review Spring 1956 ——- Related [...]

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Writers Write

July 26, 2010

“The trade of authorship is a violent and indestructible obsession.” George Sand (Aurore Lucile Dupin) Letter, March 4, 1831. Share Tweet Subscribe to comments on this post Email

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Writers Write

July 23, 2010

“Camerado! This is no book; who touches this touches a man.” Walt Whitman, “So Long,” from Leaves of Grass ——– Related articles by Zemanta On Whitman by C K Williams: review (telegraph.co.uk) Scientists identify meteor event in Walt Whitman poem (seattletimes.nwsource.com) Walt whitman (1819 – 1892) (slideshare.net) Walt Whitman Meteor Mystery Solved by Astronomer Sleuths [...]

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Writers Write

July 22, 2010

“I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows.” Ernest Hemingway, Interview by George Plimpton Paris Review, (pdf), spring 1958 ——— Related articles by Zemanta Ernest Hemingway Style Icon (apartmenttherapy.com) Paris Review Launches A Blog (huffingtonpost.com) Who’s right? (lookingcloser.org) A Moveable [...]

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Writers Write

July 21, 2010

“Every authentic creation is a gift to the future.” Albert Camus, “The Artist and His Time.” Share Tweet Subscribe to comments on this post Email

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Writers Write

July 20, 2010

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Becket Westward Ho Share Tweet Subscribe to comments on this post Email

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Writers Write

July 19, 2010

“Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.” James Baldwin Share Tweet Subscribe to comments on this post Email

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Writers Write

July 16, 2010

“I’m just trying to look at something without blinking.” Toni Morrison Share Tweet Subscribe to comments on this post Email

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Writers Write

July 15, 2010

“Never trust the artist. Trust the tale.” D. H. Lawrence Share Tweet Subscribe to comments on this post Email

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Writer’s Write

July 14, 2010

“The writer relies on language and not to speak for a prolonged period is the same as suicide.” Gao Xingjian Gao Xingjian accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature Share Tweet Subscribe to comments on this post Email

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