Tag Archives: Writers

The Dead Writers Round-Up: 23rd-27th May

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  • Henrik Ibsen died on 5/23/1906. “Do not use that foreign word “ideals.” We have that excellent native word “lies.””
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on 5/25/1803. “A great man is always willing to be little.”
  • Madame de La Fayette died on 5/25/1693. “Never refuse any advance of friendship, for if nine out of ten bring you nothing, one alone may repay you.”
  • Maxwell Bodenheim was born on 5/26/1892. “Poetry is the impish attempt to paint the color of the wind.”
  • Dashiell Hammett was born on 5/27/1894. “I deserve all the love you can spare me. And I want a lot more than I deserve.”
  • Rachel Carson was born on 5/27/1907. “Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.”

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A Year in Books/Day 140: Evelyn Waugh

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  • Title: Evelyn Waugh The Later Years 1939-1966
  • Author: Martin Stannard
  • Year Published: 1992/This Edition: 1994 (W.W. Norton & Company)
  • Year Purchased: 2000?
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: I’m currently on a Bright Young Things reading binge; although it focuses on Waugh’s mature years, this book almost instantly came to mind. It is one of the better biographies present on my sagging shelves. A potent reminder that he was more than just the writer of Brideshead Revisited (which, if it came down to that, wouldn’t be such a bad thing), Stannard succeeds in making the complex yet usually unapproachable Waugh, for good and bad, seem human. It is a masterly work.
  • Motivation: I collect dead writer biographies like kids collect toys.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 170: “The delay in departure was all Waugh needed to fire his imagination. There was, he felt, a story in this about everything that had troubled him since leaving the army, and Scott-King’s Modern Europe was to be his revenge on his hosts.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9
    Portrait of Evelyn Waugh

    Portrait of Evelyn Waugh (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

A Year in Books/Day 139: Schott’s Original Miscellany

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  • Title: Schott’s Original Miscellany
  • Author: Ben Schott
  • Year Published: 2003 (Bloomsbury)
  • Year Purchased: 2004/2005
  • Source: Bas Bleu
  • About: If I decided to write a reference book, it would be in this mould: eccentric, far-reaching and a treat to read. The entries are ridiculously fun yet still informative (as, of course, all such books should be): Eponymous Foods, Hampton Court Maze, Public School Slang, The Language of Flowers, Churchill & Rhetoric, Proverbially You Can’t, Super Bowl Singers, George Washington’s Rules and The Bond Films are just a few. It is a little treasure of a volume, and one that suits those of us for whom so-called useless knowledge is one of life’s great enjoyments.
  • Motivation: We all know that I LOVE reference books. Of any kind. I also hanker after eclectic knowledge because, well, why not?
  • Times Read: Cover-to-cover:1/As reference tool: countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page 5: “An encyclopedia? A dictionary? An almanac? An anthology? A lexicon? A treasury? A commonplace? An amphigouri? A vade-mecum? Well…yes. Schott’s Original Miscellany is all of these and, of course, more.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10++

Voices from the Grave #20: Leonard Woolf Speaking on Bloomsbury and Virginia Woolf

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This is a rare recorded interview of Leonard Woolf speaking about his wife, Virginia, and their friends and fellow artists in that loose, non-movement called the Bloomsbury Group. It is nearly ten minutes long but is well worth your time. It was recorded in May 1964, when Leonard was 83.

 

 

[20 May 2012] This Week’s Lessons in Reading and Writing

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  • My ideal non-fiction to fiction reading ratio is 4 to 1.
  • There are certain writers-as in certain foods-I just do not like. But it is still important to take them for a spin every couple of years to see if that has changed. You never know, I love mushrooms now.
  • I can go a week without reading a magazine-any magazine-and not explode.
  • The only way that I will devote time to fiction crafting is to firmly write it in, using indelible marker. Works every time. You’d think I would do that more often.
  • I should pay more attention to contemporary fiction (that actually has a contemporary setting.).
  • No matter how organized I am in other areas of my life (which is to say, I am usually HIGHLY organized) it is hard to apply that to my business for any extended period of time.

AND A LESSON RE-LEARNED:

  • Know your strengths and use them to move or alter creative boundaries.

Daily Diversion #9: Emily Dickinson

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I'm nobody, who are you?

I’m nobody, who are you?

This literary paper doll was a birthday gift from my mom about 5 years ago. She lives on a shelf in my studio, staring at me from behind a glazed ceramic urn full of Tardis dessert flags.

Beauty is not caused. It is.

Beauty is not caused. It is.

Her deceptively simple poetry quickens the mind, the heart, the blood, the creativity that dwells within us all, hidden yet frantic to escape.

 

A Year in Books/Day 138: Fanny Stevenson

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  • Title: Fanny Stevenson Muse, Adventuress & Romantic Enigma
  • Author: Alexandra Lapierre
  • Translator: Carol Cosman
  • Year Published: 1995/This Edition: 1996 (Fourth Estate)
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: This book was my introduction to Fanny Stevenson, the wife and widow of Robert Louis Stevenson. Lapierre’s wonderful, detailed and complex biography neatly answers two questions: Why did the great Scots writer fall in love with, and sacrifice so much for, this unknown, controversial American woman? Who, exactly, was Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne? In order to explicate on the great mystery that is the former, Lapierre goes to impressive lengths of research to figure out the latter. In answering these questions, it is obvious that the subject and her extraordinary life would have been worth the resultant biography even had she never met and married the writer of the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Treasure Island and Kidnapped. As a plucky, resourceful, intelligent, resilient and talented woman, she emerges as much more than just a ‘great man’s’ muse.

    Fanny Osbourne, shortly before her meeting wit...

    Fanny Osbourne, shortly before her meeting with Robert Louis Stevenson. Français : Fanny Osbourne, peu de temps avant sa rencontre avec Robert Louis Stevenson. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Motivation: I love obscure artistic ladies, especially when they are armed with an excessive amount of fighting spirit and intelligence.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 272: “Fifteen years later, on the eve of his own death, Robert Louis Stevenson described his wife to one of his friends: Hellish energy relieved by fortnights of entire hibernation…Doctors everybody, will doctor you, cannot be doctored herself.“
  • Happiness Scale: 10

Shopping for the Bookworm: New England Transcendentalists Edition

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For some reason, I have been thinking a lot about the New England Transcendentalists. Maybe it is the image of Margaret Fuller that stares down at me from one of my inspiration boards. Whatever the cause, it is a fine subject to be preoccupied with on a lovely Spring day. In honor of today’s one-track thought process, I’ve collected an inspiring and eclectic group of NET-inspired goodies. Enjoy!

This shop is so full of literary-themed profiles that every visit requires a gargantuan exercise in restraint. I want them all, I went them all now! Continue reading →

[Alternative Muse of the Month] Let’s Talk About Katherine Mansfield’s Miss Brill, or: Why Writers Deserve Silly, Media-Created Nicknames, Too

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I dream of a world where people care enough about writers to give them silly, unnecessary and catchy nicknames. Move aside JLo and LiLo, because here comes JAust (pronounced joust, because it just sounds better). Are you sick of Brangelina and, Lord help us, Kimye? Fear not, because SylT is here to make it all better. (For the record: I refuse to acknowledge the talented but dickish Ted with more than a perfunctory T.) I could do this all day (and probably will in some future post, because this is kind of fun, yes?) but I’ll stop after one more, the subject of this piece: KathMans. Continue reading →