Oh, Autumn!

Oh, autumn! You are my favourite season. No, really. I adore everything about you: your beautiful leaves, smoke-scented wind, vibrant sunsets, pumpkin patches, delectable food (warm cider, caramel apples, pie). You are really quite remarkable.

Autumn by Abraham Manievich, 1914

Autumn by Abraham Manievich, 1914

Autumn by Béla Farkas, 1913

Autumn by Béla Farkas, 1913

Autumn Leaves by John Everett Millais, 1856

Autumn Leaves by John Everett Millais, 1856

You have the best pastimes: hayrides, haunted houses, apple picking.

No wonder your charms drive poets into the arms of hyperbole:

you are the season of purest inspiration.

Autumn  by Alfons Mucha, 1886

Autumn by Alfons Mucha, 1886

Your sights, sounds, smells–all are bundled away until needed. I unpack them in the heart of winter, when I do my best writing. They make life, and work, less barren. Hopeful, warm.

Autumn by Jens Lund, 1909

Autumn by Jens Lund, 1909

Thank you.

The Dead Writers Round-Up: 10th-14th November

  • Oliver Goldsmith was born on 11/10/1728. “You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.” (The Vicar of Wakefield; The Deserted Village; She Stoops to Conquer)
  • Friedrich Schiller was born on 11/10/1759. “Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.” (The Robbers; Intrigue and Love; Don Carlos; The Maid of Orleans; William Tell)
  • Arthur Rimbaud died on 11/10/1891. “I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am.” (Soleil et chair; Le bateau ivre; Illuminations)
  • Ken Kesey died on 11/10/2001. “You can’t really be strong until you can see a funny side to things.” (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Sometimes a Great Notion; Caverns; Sailor Song)
  • Norman Mailer died on 11/10/2007. “Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego.” (The Naked and the Dead; The Executioner’s Song; Ancient Evenings; The Gospel According to the Son)
  • Kurt Vonnegut was born on 11/11/1922. “And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.” (The Sirens of Titan; Mother Night; Cat’s Cradle; Slaughterhouse-Five; Jailbird; Timequake)
  • Carlos Fuentes was born on 11/11/1928. “I need, therefore I imagine.” (Aura; Terra Nostra; The Old Gringo; Diana: the Goddess Who Hunts Alone; The Years with Laura Diaz)
  • Elizabeth Gaskell died on 11/12/1865. “Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortune of others.” (Cranford; North and South; Wives and Daughters: An Everyday Story)
  • Robert Louis Stevenson was born on 11/13/1850. “Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” (Treasure Island; Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; Kidnapped; The Master of Ballantrae)
  • Arthur Hugh Clough died on 11/13/1861. “My wind is turned to bitter north/That was so soft a south before.” (Tober-na-Vuolich; Mari Magno, or Tales on Board)
  • Saki (H.H. Munro) died on 11/13/1916. “The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.” (The Westminster Alice; The Unbearable Bassington; When William Came)
  • Clementine Paddleford died on 11/13/1967. “Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be!” (A Dickens Christmas Dinner; How America Eats)
  • Astrid Lindgren was born on 11/14/1907. “But still, if it’s true, how can it be a lie?” (Pippi Longstocking series; Bill Bergson series)
  • Booker T. Washington died on 11/14/1915. “I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.” (Character Building; Up from Slavery; Working with the Hands)
  • Robert E. Sherwood died on 11/14/1955. “We all come from our own little planets. That’s why we’re all different. That’s what makes life interesting.” (Waterloo Bridge; Reunion in Vienna; The Petrified Forest; Idiot’s Delight; Abe Lincoln in Illinois; There Shall Be No Night)
  • Malcolm Muggeridge died on 11/14/1990. “Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.” (Three flats: a play in three acts; Winter in Moscow; In a valley of this restless mind)

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