A Writer's Moment: 'Be brave enough to speak the truth'

A Writer's Moment: 'Be brave enough to speak the truth':   “ Be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur.  You must then live it to its fullest.”  – Muriel Sp...

'Be brave enough to speak the truth'

 

“Be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur.  You must then live it to its fullest.” – Muriel Spark

 

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland on Feb. 1, 1918, Spark applied that philosophy to an award-winning career as a novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist.  Her writing (and editing) career grew out of her work as a British Intelligence Officer during World War II when she realized she had a knack for the clever use of words.   

 

Starting as an editor of Poetry Review magazine, she soon was writing poems of her own, authoring several critically acclaimed poetry collections and books of criticism before turning to short stories and then novels in the late 1950s.  Her first effort, The Comforters, – built around the clever plot of a young woman who becomes aware that she is a character in a novel – firmly established her credentials as a major writer.

 

Perhaps best known for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – also adapted into both a play and a movie – she went on to write 22 novels and 21 books of poetry and nonfiction.  Her thriller The Mandelbaum Gate also was a multiple award winner.  Shortly before her death in 2006, she was named for the Golden PEN Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature and ranked 8^th by The London Times among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.”   

“To be a successful writer,” Spark said, “one must be brave enough to speak the truth, even when it is uncomfortable or unpopular.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The only one listening'

A Writer's Moment: 'The only one listening':   “There's a reason poets often say, 'Poetry saved my life,' for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul'...

'The only one listening'

 

“There's a reason poets often say, 'Poetry saved my life,' for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul's suffering, the only one registering the story completely, the only one receiving all softly and without condemnation.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estés

 

Born in Gary, Indiana on Jan. 27, 1945, Estés’ 6 books – led by the longtime bestselling Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of The Wild Woman Archetype – and some two dozen audio works have been released in 37 languages.   For Saturday’s Poem, here is Estés’,

 

                              Rainmaker: you could be the water

By the scent of water alone,
the withered vine comes back to life,
and thus…wherever the land is dry and hard,
you could be the water;
or you could be the iron blade
disking the earth open;
or you could be the acequia,
the mother ditch, carrying the water
from the river to the fields
to grow the flowers for the farmers;
or you could be the honest engineer
mapping the dams that must be taken down,
and those dams which could remain to serve
the venerable all, instead of only the very few.
You could be the battered vessel
for carrying the water by hand;
or you could be the one
who stores the water.
You could be the one who
protects the water,
or the one who blesses it,
or the one who pours it.
Or you could be the tired ground
that receives it;
or you could be the scorched seed
that drinks it;
or you could be the vine,
green-growing overland,
in all your wild audacity…

A Writer's Moment: 'Our carriers of civilization'

A Writer's Moment: 'Our carriers of civilization':   “Books are humanity in print.  Books are carriers of civilization.  Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, t...

'Our carriers of civilization'

 

“Books are humanity in print.  Books are carriers of civilization.  Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.” – Barbara Tuchman 

Born in New York City on Jan. 30, 1912, Tuchman was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, led by her 1962 best-selling award winner The Guns of August (a prelude to and first month of World War I), and her 1970 biography on World War II General Joseph Stilwell.   In 1978, she wrote the amazing A Distant Mirror about the calamitous 14^th Century but considered reflective of the 20^th, especially on the horrors of war.  That book, too, was a finalist for the Pulitzer.

 

Tuchman began her career as a journalist and in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, became one of the few women – along with Martha Gelhorn – working as a war correspondent for The Nation.   Tuchman authored 11 best-selling historical books, many of which remain widely read and cited in both academic and popular history, maintaining her legacy and influence on historical scholarship.

 

“I want the reader to turn the page,” she said of her popular writing style, “and keep on turning until the end.”

A Writer's Moment: '(It's) the tool of our tradition'

A Writer's Moment: '(It's) the tool of our tradition':   "Our task as fiction writers isn't just to report something that didn't really happen.  We have to give what we write a sense...