A Writer's Moment
A look at writing and writers who inspire us.
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“One of the great joys of life is creativity. Information goes in, gets shuffled about, and comes out in new and intere...
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“There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, ...
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“Librarians and romance writers accomplish one mission better than anyone, including English teachers: we create readers for life - and w...
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A Writer's Moment: 'Information In; Creative Responses Out' : “One of the great joys of life is creativity....
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A Writer's Moment: 'Property of the imagination' : “The English language is nobody's special property. ...
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A Writer's Moment: 'Story ideas surround you' : “I always tell my students, 'If you walk around with your eyes and ears...
Friday, December 12, 2025
A Writer's Moment: 'First and foremost, create silence'
'First and foremost, create silence'
“The
biggest achievement is to create silence. I think every real writer who has a
passion to do justice to the world thinks this way.” –
Peter Handke
Born
in Austria in December of 1942, Handke is the 2019 Nobel Prize-winner in
literature, recognized for the breadth of his work as a novelist, playwright,
translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter.
He
first broke onto the international writing scene with his 1960s award-winning
play Offending the Audience and novel The Goalie's
Anxiety at the Penalty Kick. His play Wings of
Desire and his semi-autobiographical novel A Sorrow Beyond
Dreams also have earned rave reviews.
“An artist,” he said, “is only an
exemplary person if you can see in his works how life goes.”
Thursday, December 11, 2025
A Writer's Moment: 'It's the living memory of nations'
'It's the living memory of nations'
“Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience … from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes the living memory of a nation.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Solzhenitsyn,
born in Russia on this date in 1918, wrote some of the great pieces of world
literature in his historic novels The Gulag Archipelago and One
Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. The books are both Classics
and classes in great writing that unfold in the conversations and images around
the horrors facing ordinary people who dared to confront the evils of
totalitarianism.
Solzhenitsyn spent nearly half his life in prison, work camps, or exile for his willingness to stand for those ordinary people in the works he created. After being exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974, he lived for a number of years in the U.S. where he continued to turn out amazing literature until he returned to Russia in 1994, where he lived out his days. He died in Moscow in 2008.
Awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature” Solzhenitsyn had this advice for writers willing to stand for social justice:
“Own
only what you can always carry with you; (and) know languages, know countries,
know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
A Writer's Moment: 'A magical moment when words begin to pour'
'A magical moment when words begin to pour'
“The
values transmitted through oral history are many - courage, selflessness, the
ability to endure, and to do so with humor and grace. I got those values
listening to my dad's stories about the Depression and how their family
survived. It gave me courage that I, too, could survive hard times.” –
Ann Turner
Born
in Northampton, MA on this date in 1945, Turner has authored 44 novels,
picture books and poetry collections for children and Young Adults in a career
that actually began when she was a student at Bates College.
While
there she won first prize in the Atlantic Monthly’s college
creative writing contest, sparking an interest in writing that never left. An education major, she tried her
hand at teaching but ultimately was drawn back to her dream of writing. Her first
novel A Hunter Comes Home was an American Library Association
“Notable Children's Book” and her first picture book, Dakota Dugout,
received the same honor. Since then she has won dozens of awards in
every category in which she writes.
Among
her multiple award-winning books are Abe Lincoln Remembers and Through
Moon and Stars and Night Skies. Her
most recent YA novel is Father of Lies, a suspense-filled (and
bestselling) retelling of the Salem Witch Trials from the perspective of a
14-year-old girl.
“There
is the magical moment when words begin to pour out onto the page — words which
surprise and confound even me,” Turner said of her writing successes. “I
am as interested in seeing what happens to my characters as any reader; that is
why I tell kids that writers write for the same reason readers read - to find
out the end of the story.”