Internet Writing Workshop members continually demonstrate how workshop efforts contribute to publishing success, and no better example exists than Gary Presley's full page essay in Sunday's New York Times.
Gary -- a longtime IWW member and now co-owner -- is a touchstone to many and a workshop cornerstone whose commitment to excellence in writing is rivaled only by his hands-on approach in helping fellow members become the best they can be.
In a week marked by giving thanks, we at the IWW would like to thank Gary for his tireless efforts and congratulate him -- as well as the following members -- for a week of hard earned and well deserved publishing successes.
Jody
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Gary Presley
An essay I've worked on for about a year, paring it down, down, down, found a home in the NEW YORK TIMES "Modern Love" column this week.
Barry Basden
Thirteen Myna Birds is a unique little venue. New entries appear at the top and progress down the site until they drop off into oblivion, much like life its own self.
My three poems, "Erections," "TB Blues" and "His Kind of Woman" now appear at the head of the list of the current thirteen.
Viewer discretion is advised.
Stacey Dye
My poem "Country Pictorial" was up at Dew on the Kudzu on Thanksgiving Day. It was inspired by a trip my sister Sunny and I took one late fall day driving the rural black tops of South Georgia.
I had forgotten how wonderful it could be and all the things there were to see and to be cherished.
Hope you'll take the time to take a peek when you can!
Diane Faulkner
I just signed a contract to ghostwrite a memoir! Yea! It's my second ghostwriting gig, but first memoir.
To be considered, work must be nominated by one's peers. It is then judged by an IBPC judge, a recognized poet. I've never made it past Honorable Mention and that was several years ago. I'm still surprised.
Be sure to take a look at the 2nd, 3rd and HM poems, too.
The forum in which I participate is called the House of 30, on Blueline. I've been submitting a poem a day (30 in a set) for at least five years. It's a wonderful practice and discipline, and you end up with a body of work to work on.
And, my one-liner is up at 50-to-1. Just scroll down a couple of pieces, and there I'll be. But, don't go too fast. The other work is really entertaining.
50-1 is open for submissions, and Sam (editor) said he'd love to see more work from the IWW.
My review for Dreaming In Hindi has been published by Feminist Review. Enjoy.
Randy Radic
My review of Alcatraz: The Gangster Years is up at Basil and Spice. Thanks to the kind people at the University of California Press for the book and to Kelly of Basil and Spice for the opportunity.
My blog/article about the Vatican going hi-tech is up at Basil and Spice. Thanks to Kelly for the opportunity.
Wayne Scheer
This is beyond surprise for me. My poem, "Cousin Harold," was nominated by Shine Journal for a Pushcart Prize. That makes three nominations this year!
The poem can be found in the July issue of Shine.
Every Day Fiction accepted my humor piece, "The Naked City," for a future issue.
Clive Warner
I'm really proud to announce the release of Citiria's first EBook, Alien Seeding, by Perry Defiore.
Illustration is by a San Francisco artist, and it was a real pleasure to work with someone so talented. I did the font work and wrote the blurb and publisher's note.
Virginia Winters
My novel Murderous Roots is available in ebook format at Write Words Inc.
Prepared by: Patricia Johnson Reposted on: November 29, 2009 _____________________
Exercise: In 400 words or less, shift the point of view (POV) between two characters within a single scene. Make the transitions between characters seamless, and let the narrator's voice show. _____________________
This exercise requires you to be omniscient, to be in the head of more than one character at a time--indeed, even to know more than both characters put together.
This can be tricky. The narrator can reveal everything about the characters, action, places, and events, regardless of what specific people know. The author can enter every character's thoughts, unlike in the more commonly used third person limited POV, where the narrative is told from one particular character's viewpoint. Sometimes an author lapses into omniscient POV unintentionally while writing in limited POV.
Omniscient POV can lead to confusion if not done well. The author has to move seamlessly from one character's view to another, and orchestrate the narrative voice to avoid a tangle of information that seems to come from everywhere at once.
Here is an example of omniscient POV:
Robert thought it odd that his supervisor was waiting in his office. He bent over his secretary's desk and said, "Audrey, run the mail down right now, please." Robert was always one for covering bases, and sending his secretary out on an errand would insure she could not hear what was about to take place.
*Note that we read Robert's thoughts and also read the author's comment that Robert covers bases. This moves the focus away from Robert and eases us into a transition to the secretary's POV:
Audrey was tired of being sent away from her desk so frequently. "Sure, Robert," she said. "I just took the mail two hours ago, though." She left the office, walking slowly. It was obvious enough to anyone that Robert was in trouble. What made her angry was his thinking he could hide his problems with his boss by sending her out of the room.
*We see the scene from both Robert's and Audrey's POV, including the narrator's observations-- omniscient POV. _____________________
Exercise: In 400 words or less, shift the point of view (POV) between two characters within a single scene. Make the transitions between characters seamless, and let the narrator's voice show. _____________________
Critique by noting whether the transitions worked smoothly. Was the viewpoint fully omniscient? Was there evidence that the author has inside the head of both characters?
These exercises were written by IWW members and administrators to provide structured practice opportunities for its members. You are welcome to use them for practice as well. Please mention that you found them at the Internet Writing Workshop.
This Day In Writing History On November 27th, 1909, the famous novelist, poet, screenwriter, literary and film critic James Agee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. When he was six years old, his father was killed in a car accident. A year later, he and his younger sister Emma were sent to the first of several boarding schools. James' favorite boarding school was the Saint Andrews School for Mountain Boys in Sewanee, Tennessee. At this school, run by Episcopal monks, Agee met Episcopal priest Father James Harold Flye, who would become a lifelong friend.
When he was sixteen, after spending the summer traveling through Europe with Father Flye, James Agee entered Phillips Exeter Academy prep school, where he became president of the Lantern Club and editor of the Monthly, where his first writings, including short stories, poetry, and plays, were published. Although he barely passed most of his classes, Agee was admitted to Harvard after graduation, where he became editor-in-chief of the Harvard Advocate and delivered the class ode at commencement.
After graduating Harvard, Agee married his first wife, Via Saunders, and began writing for Fortune magazine. In 1934, his first and only poetry collection, Permit Me Voyage, was published, featuring a foreword by poet Archibald MacLeish. While writing for Fortune, Agee spent eight weeks on assignment living with poor sharecroppers in Alabama, but left the magazine before completing his article. He turned the material into a non-fiction book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). The book only sold 600 copies before it was remaindered. That year, Agee's second marriage broke up.
The next year, James Agee became the literary critic for Time magazine. At one point, he was reviewing up to six books a week. He left Time to become the film critic for the liberal news magazine The Nation. By 1948, he had become a freelance writer. An assignment for Life magazine resulted in the publication of an acclaimed article about legendary silent film comedians Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Harry Langdon. The article is credited with reviving Keaton's career.
Many of Agee's freelance assignments were movie reviews or articles on films, most of which were later published as Agee On Film and Agee On Film II. He championed Charlie Chaplin's classic film, Monsieur Verdoux (1947), a controversial black comedy that was ahead of its time. A commercial failure that raised the ire of conservative audiences and the clergy, the movie starred Chaplin as Henri Verdoux, a Parisian bank teller who loses his job to the global depression. So, in order to support his crippled wife and their little son, Verdoux becomes a professional bluebeard, marrying then murdering rich women for their money. The funniest scene finds Chaplin in a rowboat, trying in vain to kill his latest wife, played by comedienne Martha Raye. She unknowingly thwarts his attempts at murdering her.
In the 1950s, while continuing his work as a freelance writer, James Agee became a Hollywood screenwriter. Although his screenwriting career was derailed by his alcoholism, Agee would co-write the screenplays for two classic films, The African Queen (1951) and Night Of The Hunter (1955). The African Queen, directed by John Huston, was an adaptation of C.S. Forester's novel about missionaries in German East Africa during the outbreak of World War 1. Robert Morley and Katharine Hepburn play the British brother-and-sister missionaries. Humphrey Bogart co-stars as Charlie Allnut, the grizzled Canadian boat captain who delivers their mail and supplies and later tries to save Hepburn from the Germans after her brother dies.
Night Of The Hunter, a classic suspense thriller, was directed by Charles Laughton and based on a novel by Davis Grubb. Robert Mitchum starred as Reverend Harry Powell, a preacher and psychopathic serial killer with the words LOVE and HATE tattooed across his knuckles. Powell tracks down the two small children of his former cellmate, hoping to get his hands on a fortune in stolen money, after which, he plans to kill the kids. The children find sanctuary with an elderly but tough woman (played by silent screen legend Lillian Gish) who sings religious hymns and packs a shotgun.
Despite Agee's success, the ravages of alcoholism and chain-smoking took their toll on his health. On May 16th, 1955, James Agee died of a heart attack (his third) while in a cab en route to a doctor's appointment. He was 45 years old. In 1957, his first and only novel, an autobiographical novel titled A Death In The Family, was published posthumously. A year later, it won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Quote Of The Day "I'm very anxious not to fall into archaism or 'literary diction.' I want my vocabulary to have a very large range, but the words must be alive." - James Agee
Vanguard Video Today's video features the original theatrical trailer for the classic film Night Of The Hunter, co-written by James Agee. Enjoy!
A Note About Posting Comments We at the Internet Writing Workshop welcome your comments on our blog posts. Keep in mind, though, that your comments will not appear on the site immediately after you post them, as the blog has been set up so that the administrator (me) must approve comments before they are posted. This is done primarily to keep out spam. So, please don't resend your comments if you don't see them immediately after you submit them.
I try to check the blog at least several times a day to see if there are comments waiting to be approved for posting. Under normal circumstances, if they're accepted, it should take no longer than 24 hours for your comments to appear on the site after you submit them. We thank you for taking the time to comment on our blog posts.
This Day In Writing History On November 25th, 1952, The Mousetrap, a play by the legendary British mystery writer Agatha Christie, opened in London at the Ambassadors Theatre. The play, a murder mystery, was Christie's adaptation of her own short story, Three Blind Mice. It was first written as a radio play, performed on May 30th, 1947, in honor of the 80th birthday of England's Queen Mary.
For the stage version, Agatha Christie had to change the title because there was another play running at the time called Three Blind Mice, and the author of that work, Emile Littler, didn't want Christie's play confused with his. The title The Mousetrap was suggested by Christie's son-in-law, Anthony Hicks, who observed that it was Hamlet's metaphoric description of the play he uses to "catch the conscience of the King."
In Agatha Christie's play, a young couple, Giles and Mollie Ralston, have turned the old Monkswell Manor into a successful hotel. One winter day, the Ralstons find themselves snowed in with some guests and a stranded traveler who ran his car into a snowbank. A policeman, Detective Sergeant Trotter, arrives on skis to warn everyone that a murderer is on the loose and headed for the hotel. When one of the guests (Mrs. Boyle) is killed, the others realize that the murderer is already there.
Suspicion first falls on the obviously troubled Christopher Wren, but soon it seems that any one of the snowed-in group could be the murderer. As the play progresses, we learn that the murderer's first victim was a woman who served time in prison for abusing three foster children who were placed in her care. The plot thickens, and red herrings abound. Detective Sergeant Trotter plans to set a trap for the killer. Finally, in a shocking surprise twist ending, the murderer is revealed to be...
What, did you think I was going to tell you and spoil the play? Traditionally, after the play ends at the theater, the audience is asked not to reveal the identity of the murderer to those who haven't seen the play. I'm going to observe that tradition.
The Mousetrap holds the record for the longest initial run of any play in history, with over 24,000 performances and counting. When the play made its debut in 1952, the original cast featured Sir Richard Attenborough as Detective Sergeant Trotter and his wife, Sheila Sim, as Mollie Ralston. In 1974, after 9,000 performances, the production was moved to St. Martin's Theatre, where it still runs today.
Quote Of The Day "I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest." - Agatha Christie
Vanguard Video Today's video features the promotional trailer for a recent production of The Mousetrap at the Lakewood Playhouse in Lakewood, Washington. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On November 24th, 1859, The Origin Of Species, the famous scientific textbook by Charles Darwin, was published. Its full title was On The Origin Of Species By Means Of Natural Selection, or The Preservation Of Favoured Races In The Struggle For Life. When the sixth edition of the book was published in 1872, the title was shortened to The Origin Of Species.
Charles Darwin was a brilliant British scientist, a former medical student turned biologist who had previously published textbook studies of subjects such as fossils, volcanic islands, and coral reefs. With The Origin Of Species, he laid down the groundwork for his theories of evolution, which, although accepted by the scientific community, remain controversial to this day.
The main theme of The Origin Of Species is natural selection - the process of evolution whereby organisms acquire heritable traits that make it more likely that the organisms will survive and reproduce - traits that allow organisms to adapt to their environment. This was nothing new to science; theories of natural selection go back to the ancient Greek philosophers, from Empedocles to Aristotle.
What made Charles Darwin's study of natural selection revolutionary - and controversial - were his theories of evolution concerning common ancestry of species. In the late 18th century, Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, proposed a similar theory of how, through evolution, one species can become another. In 1809, French scientist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck took the idea further with his theory of the transmutation of species. But it was Charles Darwin's landmark study that defined this aspect of evolution as we know it today.
In the mid-19th century, when he published The Origin Of Species, the scientific community in Britain was closely tied to the Church of England. Reactions to Darwin's book were sharply mixed. Liberal clergymen accepted Darwin's theories, declaring evolution to be God's plan of creation. Conservative (fundamentalist) clergymen decried evolution as blasphemous, taking the Bible's book of Genesis to be the literal truth and scientific fact, calling this "science" creationism.
Creationism and evolution would clash most famously in the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. John Scopes, a high school science teacher in Tennessee, had been charged with violating that state's Butler Act, which made it unlawful to "teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals" in any state-funded school or university.
Despite a brilliant defense mounted by legendary attorney Clarence Darrow, Scopes was convicted and fined $1o0, the equivalent of about $1,200 in today's money. The case was appealed to the Tennessee State Supreme Court, which affirmed the conviction, but threw out the fine on a technicality. The Butler Act would remain on the books in Tennessee until it was voluntarily repealed in 1967. A year later, in the precedent-setting case of Epperson vs. Arkansas, the United States Supreme Court overturned that state's law forbidding the teaching of evolution as unconstitutional.
The hotly contested battle between creationism and evolution, which began with the publication of The Origin Of Species 150 years ago, continues to this day.
Quote Of The Day "The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic." - Charles Darwin
Vanguard Video Today's video features a reading from Charles Darwin's The Origin Of Species, performed by British writer Richard Dawkins. Enjoy!
Internet Writing Workshop members continue to find publishing success in all venues. Congratulations to this week's crew!
Jody
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Barry Basden
The Dead Mule has published "My Last Hunts," "After Hours," and "Grackles" in their November issue.
There are weapons in all three poems and at least one disturbing image. Thanks to all who helped with them.
Sue Ellis
Sniplits has my story up, "A Tale of Two Kitties." The narrator, Kailey, really brought it to life. She's great. Thanks, Practice, for commenting on this one!
Ken*Again accepted "Thunderstruck," a story begun in practice, for their spring issue.
Wierdyear accepted "King Me," a strange, very short story I dashed out last Saturday night. It will appear December 1.
And last, my review of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is up at The Internet Review of Books in the short reviews.
Jody Ewing
I've received word that Iowa Public Television would like to do a feature on Iowa Cold Cases for The Iowa Journal, a series IPTV produces that analyzes and takes an in-depth look at issues impacting Iowans.
I created the Iowa Cold Cases website four years ago (the first statewide site of its kind) in an effort to list and bring together "under one roof" all open cases cross-referenced by city and county with case summaries and/or articles accompanying each victim's case.
Dawn Goldsmith
I've been interviewed at Ancient Artists. It was posted today.
Ann Hite
My story, "Mr. Snake Gets Religion," has been published at Dew On The Kudzu. Enjoy.
If you have a book out and are using a creative marketing campaign to market your work, please get in touch with me about being featured. If you're using a technique that has not yet been featured on the website, and you're willing to share your great idea so others can benefit, I'd love to feature you and give you a little more exposure.
I was a guest on the Nature Connection radio show Friday, related to my three hiking books for San Diego County. They welcomed me approximately 45 minutes into the 3-hour show.
You can slide the show fast forward and skip to my 15 minutes of fame--or listen to the whole thing. There was some good conservation information about national parks, etc.
Randy Radic
My review of Seach for Philip K. Dick is up at Basil and Spice. Thanks to Anne Dick for the book and Kelly for the opportunity.
My review of Speaking of Jews is up at Basil and Spice. Thanks to the University of California Press for the book and to Kelly at Basil and Spice for the opportunity.
My review of the Nokia E51 Smartphone is up at Basil and Spice. And it was picked up by Google News.
Thanks to Kelly for the opportunity.
Wayne Scheer
A little flash I like, "On Poetry and Boots That Don't Fit," is up at Breadcrumb Sins. It's the second story, but scroll down slowly. The title is almost longer than the content.
Powder Burn Flash has accepted my crime story, "The Drive to Succeed," for a future issue.
Foliate Oak has accepted my dark holiday tale, "Home for the Holidays," for their December
issue.
Big Pulp accepted "A Family Affair," for their January 6 issue. Big Pulp accepts the full range of genre stories and pays a penny a word. They seem to like gore and fantasy with a sense of humor.
"Home for the Holidays" began in Practice and "A Family Affair" was critiqued in Fiction, so I have you guys to thank.
Pat St. Pierre
My story "Grandpa's Not Alone" (juvenile), appears in the November issue of Knowonder magazine.
Created by: Florence Cardinal as "The Doorway" Reposted, revised, on: 22 Nov 2009 __________________
Exercise: In 400 words or less, let your readers see a character opening a door, and then show us what the character sees on the other side. __________________
This is an exercise in creating a setting--keep that in mind. Your submission may be the beginning of a story or a scene, or it may introduce a character. But above all, this is your chance to practice developing a backdrop.
Imagine your character at a door. What does it look like? Where does it lead? The character opens it. Did she need a key? Did he knock, ring the bell, or just turn the knob and walk in? Or is there a knob? Does the door lead inside, or outside?
The door and what the character sees need not be anything fantastic, although they can be if you so choose. Make sure you take the time to fully visualize the setting before you start writing. What counts is not a budding plot, but the place in which the action gets underway.
Once the door is open, what does the character see, hear, smell? How about the sense of touch? What does he touch? Does anything touch her? The wind, perhaps? Describe it all so your readers can experience it along with you or your character. __________________
Exercise: In 400 words or less, let your readers see a character opening a door, and then show us what the character sees on the other side. __________________
In your critiques, concentrate on the setting. Can you *see* the place the character is standing or sitting? Setting affects characters, so see if you can perceive any such effect. And, of course, comment on the writing in general.
Critique: How smooth was the transition to the past? Was the sensory trigger appropriate and effective? How much insight does the flashback provide?
These exercises were written by IWW members and administrators to provide structured practice opportunities for its members. You are welcome to use them for practice as well. Please mention that you found them at the Internet Writing Workshop.
This Day In Writing History On November 20th, 1875, Roderick Hudson, the first novel by legendary writer Henry James, was published. James was an American who emigrated to England, where he lived, wrote, and became a British subject. He had previously written a novella, Watch And Ward (1871), which was published in serial format by the Atlantic Monthly magazine. This early work, overly melodramatic and primitive in technique, would prove an embarrassment to James, and he disowned it. It would not be published in book form until 1878, in a revised version. Thus, Roderick Hudson is considered by the author to be his first published novel.
The novel opens with Rowland Mallet, a wealthy patron of the arts, visiting his cousin Cecilia before leaving on a trip to Europe. He becomes enamored with a bust he sees. Later, he meets the sculptor, Roderick Hudson, a poor young law student and aspiring artist. The two men become friends. Rowland offers to take Roderick to Italy, where he can concentrate on his art. He visits Roderick's mother and explains his intentions. She agrees to let him give up his law studies and go to Rome.
After a rough start, Roderick's technique improves and his artistic development takes off. Unfortunately, Roderick is an immature man-child who has trouble coping with his artistic genius. He is also distracted by the women around him. Engaged to one woman, (Mary Garland) but attracted to another, (Augusta Blanchard) Roderick's romantic entanglements get worse when he meets Christina Light, a coquettish flirt who becomes his muse. Although she likes Roderick, he's poor, and Christina is interested in marrying for wealth and position. She eventually marries a prince, and Roderick's life plunges into a downward spiral.
Roderick Hudson is considered to be Henry James' most accessible novel, though it does contain his trademark complexities and erotic overtones - in this case, homoerotic overtones in the relationship between Rowland and Roderick. Christina Light - one of James' favorite creations - would return as the title character in his novel The Princess Casamassima (1886).
Henry James would go on to become of one of the greatest writers of his generation, famous for his masterful novels and novellas such as The American (1877), Daisy Miller (1878), Washington Square (1880), The Portrait Of A Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), and What Maisie Knew (1897). His most famous work was the classic horror novella The Turn Of The Screw (1898). He also wrote plays, literary criticisms, travelogues, biographies, and memoirs.
Quote Of The Day "The advantage, the luxury, as well as the torment and responsibility of the novelist, is that there is no limit to what he may attempt as an executant — no limit to his possible experiments, efforts, discoveries, successes." - Henry James
Vanguard Video Today's video features a reading from Henry James' classic novella, The Turn Of The Screw. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On November 19th, 1942, the famous poet Sharon Olds was born in San Francisco, California. Although raised in an extremely religious "hellfire Calvinist" family, she would reject her religion and become a poet. After graduating Stanford with an English degree, she moved East to attend Columbia University, where she earned her Ph.D.
By the age of 30, Sharon had spent nearly a decade writing poems, none of which satisfied her. She felt she was just imitating the styles of her favorite poets. So, she sought out her own poetical voice, and at the age of 37, her first poetry collection, Satan Says (1980) was published. It received the very first San Francisco Poetry Center Award, as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Her second poetry collection, The Dead And The Living, (1984) won both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lamont Poetry Prize. It sold over 50,000 copies. One of my favorite poems from this book is The Connoisseuse Of Slugs:
When I was a connoisseuse of slugs I would part the ivy leaves, and look for the naked jelly of those gold bodies, translucent strangers glistening along the stones, slowly, their gelatinous bodies at my mercy. Made mostly of water, they would shrivel to nothing if they were sprinkled with salt, but I was not interested in that. What I liked was to draw aside the ivy, breathe the odor of the wall, and stand there in silence until the slug forgot I was there and sent its antennae up out of its head, the glimmering umber horns rising like telescopes, until finally the sensitive knobs would pop out the ends, delicate and intimate. Years later, when I first saw a naked man, I gasped with pleasure to see that quiet mystery reenacted, the slow elegant being coming out of hiding and gleaming in the dark air, eager and so trusting you could weep.
Sharon's style of confessional poetry uses raw, often profane language and striking imagery within a plainly spoken narrative to convey truths in subjects such as family relationships, sexuality, the body, domestic violence, and political oppression.
She would continue to publish poetry collections; memorable volumes include The Gold Cell (1987), The Father (1993), and The Wellspring (1996). Her most recent book, One Secret Thing, was published in 2008. Her work has been anthologized in over 100 collections and has been translated into seven languages for international publication. From 1998-2000, she served as New York State Poet Laureate.
In 2005, Sharon became famous for a publication that had nothing to do with her poetry. First Lady Laura Bush had invited her to the National Book Festival in Washington D.C., and Sharon declined the invitation - in an open letter published by the liberal news magazine, The Nation. She explained her reason for declining the invitation as follows:
I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear witness--as an American who loves her country and its principles and its writing--against this undeclared and devastating war.
But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.
What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting "extraordinary rendition:" flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us.
So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.
In addition to her career as a poet, Sharon Olds is also a teacher of English and creative writing. She lives in New York City, where she teaches creative writing at New York University.
Quote Of The Day "The older I get, the more I feel almost beautiful." - Sharon Olds
Vanguard Video Today's video features Sharon Olds reading two of her poems at the Dodge Poetry Festival in September, 2008. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On November 18th, 1939, the famous Canadian writer Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Her father was an entomologist, her mother a dietitian and nutritionist. As a result of her father's research in forest entomology, Margaret spent most of her childhood in the backwoods of Northern Quebec.
Although she didn't attend school full-time until she was eleven years old, from a young age, she was a voracious reader, with a special interest in Grimm's fairy tales, pocketbook mysteries, animal stories and comic books. Margaret began writing her own stories at the age of six. As a teenager, she realized she wanted to be a professional writer. She attended Leaside High School in Leaside, Toronto, from which she graduated in 1957.
After graduation, Margaret enrolled at Victoria University in the University of Toronto, where she earned a B.A. degree in English. She had minored in philosophy and French. In 1961, the year she graduated from Victoria University, Margaret's first book, a poetry collection titled Double Persephone, was published. The privately printed book won its author the E.J. Pratt Medal.
With a Woodrow Wilson fellowship, Margaret enrolled at Radcliffe College to begin her graduate studies. The following year, she earned a Master's degree. From there, she pursued more graduate studies at Harvard, but dropped out two years later, never completing her dissertation on "The English Metaphysical Romance." She has taught English at many universities, including the University of British Columbia (1965), Sir George Williams University in Montreal (1967-68), the University of Alberta (1969-79), and York University in Toronto (1971-72).
In 1969, Margaret Atwood's first novel was published. The Edible Woman was a bold, brilliant, experimental allegory that established her as a major talent. It told the story of Marian McAlpin, a market researcher whose sane, structured, consumer-oriented world falls out of focus and becomes a surreal nightmare of existential, feminist angst after her boyfriend, Peter Wollander, proposes marriage. Food seems to take on human qualities, and Marian finds herself unable to eat because she identifies with it - she believes that, in asking her to marry him, Peter wants to metaphorically devour her. So, she bakes a cake in the shape of a woman and offers it to Peter as a substitute. He walks out and Marian eats the cake.
Margaret would continue exploring both existentialist and feminist themes in her novels Surfacing (1972), Lady Oracle (1976), and Life Before Man (1979). Her 1981 novel, Bodily Harm, features a unique heroine: a journalist and breast cancer survivor who gets caught up in violent civil unrest on an island in the Caribbean. Her next novel would become a celebrated classic of science fiction, though she considered it speculative fiction.
The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is set in the future, in the Republic of Gilead, a country that used to be the United States, until a violent military coup by Christian extremists killed the President in a terrorist attack, then ousted the Congress and abolished the Constitution. The Republic of Gilead is a racist, chauvinist, totalitarian Christian theocracy - a regime of social and religious orthodoxy inspired by the Old Testament and in response to a declining population (due to infertility) and a marked lack of "values."
In this dystopian society, sex is considered fundamentally degrading, so men must abstain from all forms of sex except marital intercourse for the purpose of reproduction. Sex is allowed outside of marriage for reproductive purposes if one's wife is sterile. In this case, a married man may keep concubines called "handmaids" for breeding. Of course, this Christian theocratic model society is rife with hypocrisy and cruelty.
The elite men who rule the Republic employ prostitutes called "jezebels" who also work at unofficial state-run brothels. Although abortion is a crime, babies born with any kind of defect mysteriously vanish not long after their birth and are never seen again. Widows, nuns, and dissident women (and handmaids who fail to conceive a child after a certain period of time) are exiled. Older, infertile women are forced into lives of domestic servitude. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death or a long, torturous prison term.
The novel-within-a-novel is part straightforward narrative, part experimental, stream-of-consciousness narrative. It's mostly told by a handmaid, Offred - a slave name that means "Of Fred," as she is a concubine who belongs to her commander, Fred. Offred's testament of her life in the Republic of Gilead, recorded on a series of unnumbered cassette tapes, is transcribed sometime in the distant future by two professors. They placed the tapes in a "probable order," but are really out of order, and the transcription is unfinished.
The Handmaid's Tale won many awards: the 1985 Governor General's Award, the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1986 Booker Prize, and the 1987 Prometheus Award. It also won the very first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. It was adapted in 1990 as an acclaimed feature film directed by legendary German film maker Volker Schlondorff, working from a screenplay by Harold Pinter. Schlondorff is best known for his brilliant and stunning 1979 adaptation of Gunter Grass' legendary antifascist allegorical novel, The Tin Drum (1959).
Margaret Atwood continued to write great novels, many of which won awards. In 2003, she ventured again into science fiction with her classic novel Oryx and Crake. Set in a post- apocalyptic world where there are only two classes of people - the very rich and the very poor - and genetic engineering has gone out of control, resulting in the crossbreeding of humans and animals. Crake is a brilliant geneticist who plans to wipe out the destructive human race and replace it with Crakers, which are peaceful, environmentally friendly human-like creatures. Crake is obsessed with Oryx, a mysterious Asian woman whom Crake thinks he recognizes from a pornographic film she performed in when she was a young girl. He hires Oryx for sexual services and to be a teacher for the Crakers, but she soon becomes his lover.
Although best known for her novels, Margaret Atwood's large body of work includes poetry collections, short story collections, children's books, and non-fiction. Her first non-fiction work was a seminal literary criticism titled Survival: A Thematic Guide To Canadian Literature (1972). She has also written for television. Her latest novel, The Year Of The Flood, published earlier this year in September, 2009, is a follow-up to Oryx And Crake. She lives in Ontario, dividing her time between Toronto and Pelee Island.
Quote Of The Day "You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer." - Margaret Atwood
Vanguard Video Today's video features Margaret Atwood discussing her writings on the UCTV (University of California Television) program, Revelle Forum, in 2004. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On November 17th, 1993, The Shipping News, a novel by Annie Proulx, won the National Book Award. It wasn't the first award her writing received; her previous (and first) novel, Postcards (1992) won the PEN / Faulkner Award.
The Shipping News is the moving chronicle of Quoyle, a man who faces unexpected and tragic twists and turns in his life and struggles to move on. First, Quoyle's parents commit suicide, then his unfaithful and abusive wife Petal abducts their young daughters and runs off with her lover. After Petal sells her children to a black market adoption agency for six thousand dollars, she and her lover are killed in a car accident.
Later, the police find Quoyle's daughters and they are returned to him, safe and sound. Unfortunately, his life is falling apart. His eccentric aunt, Agnis Hamm, (his father's sister) pays an unexpected visit and convinces him to take the girls and return to the family's ancestral home in Newfoundland, (his father had emigrated to upstate New York) located on Quoyle's Point. There, he could make a fresh start.
In Newfoundland, Quoyle takes a job as a car accident reporter for the Gammy Bird, the local newspaper of Killick-Claw. (Quoyle had previously worked for a newspaper in New York.) The editor also assigns him to cover the shipping news - the arrivals and departures at the local port. This results in Quoyle writing a series of popular articles on boats of interest in the harbor.
As he tries to make a new life for himself in Newfoundland, Quoyle makes new friends within the community and falls in love with a local woman named Wavey. Quoyle finds his emotional strength and self-confidence growing - both of which he'll need, as disturbing secrets about his family history begin to emerge.
A year after it won the National Book Award, The Shipping News won its author a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2001, the novel would be adapted as an acclaimed feature film, directed by legendary Swedish film maker Lasse Hallstrom. It starred Kevin Spacey as Quoyle, Julianne Moore as Wavey, and Dame Judi Dench as Aunt Agnis.
Annie Proulx would become most famous for her acclaimed short story, Brokeback Mountain, which would be adapted as an Academy Award winning feature film in 2005.
Quote Of The Day "You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences, and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write." - Annie Proulx
Vanguard Video Today's video features the original theatrical trailer for the acclaimed film adaptation of The Shipping News. Enjoy!
If you haven't submitted to them yet, I highly suggest you try it. It's quite addictive and lots of fun. You can be dramatic, funny, ironic, or even autobiographical...the sky is the limit!
Sue Ellis
A story written for Practice, "Curve Ball," is up at Long Story Short.
It's in the micro-fiction section right after Barry's story. I'm honored to be on the same page.
Thanks so much for the helpful critiques.
Ann Hite
My story, "Blackberry Winter," from a story collection in-progress, Daniel Cemetery Stores, was accepted for publication with Mused. The editor had this to say.
"We have received a large number of amazing submissions for this issue and the selection process was very challenging. Your entry stood out as a high quality creation. Kudos for a job well done."
This gives me encouragement because these stories are set in a new place with a slightly different voice. Whenever I try something new, I get nervous.
The story will appear in their Winter Solstice issue.
My book review of A Year Of Cats And Dogs has been published by Internet Review of Books. I so love working with the editors.
Carter Jefferson
Mostly I've written erudite (I hope) book reviews during the past two years. The trouble with that is you have to read the books carefully, which takes time, and then a good review is no cinch to write. But I miss writing other things, so when a few of you started posting yahoos for 50-word stories, I finally decided to give it a try.
Success! My 37-word memoir "Horticulture" is up at 50 to 1. Scroll down to almost the bottom.
Tom Mahony
I have two stories, "Sitka Spruce" and "Smell of the Sea" up in the latest Foliate Oak.
My faction piece "Fall at Dusk" (intended for a surfing audience, but perhaps it's relatable to a general audience) is up at Kurungabaa.
Judith Quaempts
My flash fiction piece, "An Absence of Light," was accepted at Shadowpress and is there now in print and podcast.
Thanks to the fiction list for their helpful critiques of this. I'm honored to appear in company with fellow IWW members, Ann Hite and Wayne Scheer. I agree with them that editor Jason Warden is a great guy to work with, responsive and professional. I had a reply in under a week and it went up on Saturday.
My second yahoo is for a poem and I'm thanking another IWW member, Barry Basden (Editor, Camroc Press Review), for this piece of luck. "Sacrifice" has been accepted by Pemmican and will appear in February. After reading Barry's work there - in particular "A Year on the Rez," I thought maybe this poem would have a chance and was thrilled when I got an acceptance.
Randy Radic
A review of my book, Gone to Hell: True Crimes of America's Clergy, is up at Blog Critics. They liked it!
My review of The Sartorialist is up at Alvah's Books. Thanks to Sonya for the book and to Rebeca for the opportunity.
My blog/article on Rastafarianism is up at Basil and Spice, along with my review of the Sony Aino phone. Thanks to Kelly for the opportunity.
Lesli Richardson
Three of my books have made it to the EPIC finals. Two of those books have been, at least in part, put through the Novels-L list:
Out of the Darkness (writing as Lesli Richardson, Lyrical Press) - Novels-L alum
Cross Country Chaos (writing as Lesli Richardson, Siren-BookStrand) - Novels-L alum
The Reluctant Dom (writing as Tymber Dalton, Lyrical Press)
The winners will be announced at the annual conference in New Orleans next March. I'm so excited!
I just wanted to say thank you again to the staff and fellow members of the IWW for making this such a great resource! I always tell newbie writers who ask for advice to make this their first stop. (Actually I tell everyone that...)
Prepared by: Ruth Douillette Posted on: 5 November 2006 Reposted on: 8 June 2008 Reposted on: 15 November 2009
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Exercise: In less than 400 words, use one of the five senses to trigger a flashback that will give a reader needed insight into a character. Begin by briefly grounding your protagonist in the present, provide a sensory trigger that brings forth a memory, and then show us the event that affected your character. Be careful to make a smooth transition.
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A flashback is a scene in a story that takes the reader back in time from the story's current setting.
Through flashbacks, readers gain information they need to understand the character's motives, or to understand a current conflict. Dreaming, finding a diary or an old letter, or meeting an old friend can catapult a character into such a recollection. Another approach is to have the character see, smell, hear, touch, or taste something that leads to a significant memory.
A well written flashback moves the reader from the present to the past without seeming contrived or awkward.
For this exercise use a sensory trigger to spark the flashback. Perhaps your character smells banana bread and flashes on a childhood scene with her grandmother. Or your character sees a candle melted to a stub and remembers dark days when the electric bill wasn't paid. -----------------------
Exercise: In less than 400 words, use one of the five senses to trigger a flashback that will give a reader needed insight into a character. Begin by briefly grounding your protagonist in the present, provide a sensory trigger that brings forth a memory, and then show us the event that affected your character. Be careful to make a smooth transition.
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Critique: How smooth was the transition to the past? Was the sensory trigger appropriate and effective? How much insight does the flashback provide?
These exercises were written by IWW members and administrators to provide structured practice opportunities for its members. You are welcome to use them for practice as well. Please mention that you found them at the Internet Writing Workshop.
This Day In Writing History On November 13th, 1850, the legendary Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father was a renowned civil engineer who designed, built, and maintained lighthouses. It was the family business, which Stevenson's uncles and grandfather also worked in.
As a boy, Robert Louis Stevenson was sickly. Prone to coughs and fevers, which worsened considerably during the winters, he most likely suffered from bronchiectasis resulting from pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough. Stevenson's parents were devout Presbyterians, but not incredibly strict. His nanny, Alison Cunningham, was a fiercely religious Calvinist. Though her religious fervor gave Stevenson nightmares, she nursed him tenderly through his illnesses. She also read to him often and told him folk tales, planting the first seeds of his writing career.
When he was six years old, Stevenson began his schooling. Odd looking and eccentric, he didn't fit in with the other kids. His frequent illnesses kept him out of school, so he received most of his early education from private tutors. He didn't learn to read until he was seven or eight, but he began writing stories before that, dictating them to his mother and nanny. After he learned to read and write, he continued to write compulsively. When he was eleven, he entered Edinburgh Academy.
At the age of sixteen, Robert Louis Stevenson published his first piece, an essay titled The Pentland Rising: A Page Of History, 1666 (1866), which was an account of the covenanters' rebellion. His father, who was proud of his interest in writing, paid for the printing. However, he expected Robert to follow in his footsteps and join the family business. So, when he entered the University of Edinburgh in November of 1867, he majored in engineering. He hated it. Having no interest in or enthusiasm for the study of engineering, he avoided lectures whenever he could. He joined the Speculative Society - the University's exclusive debating club - whose members would become lifelong friends of his.
During vacations, Stevenson traveled with his father around the Scottish islands to inspect the family's lighthouses and other engineering works. He enjoyed these travels, but only as a source of prospective writing material. In 1871, Stevenson finally told his father that he wanted to be a writer and not an engineer. His father was displeased, but agreed to a compromise: Stevenson would study law to have something to fall back on. While he studied, Stevenson adopted a bohemian lifestyle. He wore his hair long, rejected his religion, and spent his meager allowance on cheap pubs and brothels. Although he graduated and qualified for the Scottish Bar, he never practiced law. He began his writing career instead. When his parents learned that he had become a libertine, they disowned him. It would be years before he reconciled with them.
In late 1873, Stevenson went to England to visit his cousin. While there, he hobnobbed with London's literati and struck up a friendship with Leslie Stephen, editor of the Cornhill Magazine, who was impressed by his work. When Stephen visited Edinburgh in 1875, he met with Stevenson and took him to see a friend of his, William Henley, a patient at the Edinburgh Infirmary. Henley was a colorful, talkative character who had a wooden leg. He and Stevenson became friends, and it is believed that the character of Long John Silver in Treasure Island was inspired by Henley.
Robert Louis Stevenson continued to travel. One of his journeys was a canoe trip taken through Belgium and France with Sir Walter Simpson, his old friend from the Speculative Society. The trip would serve as the basis of Stevenson's first book, An Inland Voyage, (1878) a travelogue. The canoe trip would take him to Grez in September of 1876, where he would meet Fanny Osbourne, a separated single mother ten years his senior. They would become lovers the following year. In August of 1878, Fanny returned to her home in San Francisco while Stevenson stayed in Europe and went on a 12-day, 120-mile solo hike through the Cevennes Mountains in South central France.
Stevenson wrote of the journey in his next book, Travels With A Donkey In The Cevannes. (1879). It was one of the earliest non-fiction books to present hiking and camping as recreational activities. To prepare for the trip, Stevenson commissioned one of the first sleeping bags to be made for him. Using the money he earned from Travels, Stevenson booked second class passage on the steamship Devonia and sailed to New York City. From there, he traveled across the country by train, bound for San Francisco, where Fanny was waiting for him. This trip was chronicled in his book The Amateur Emigrant, which would be published posthumously in 1895.
Unfortunately, when Stevenson reached Monterey, the trip had taken a huge toll on his fragile health. Too weak to go on to San Francisco, he was joined in Monterey by Fanny, who nursed him back to health. They were married in May of 1880. After Stevenson regained his health, they went to England, where Fanny would help her husband reconcile with his parents. Stevenson and Fanny spent the next several years living in various places throughout England and Scotland, searching for a home that would be suitable for his fragile health. His writing career took off, as he wrote his most famous works.
Treasure Island (1883), his first novel, was an exciting adventure for children about a boy, Jim Hawkins, who helps search for treasure after receiving a map from pirate Billy Bones, a rum-guzzling lodger at his parents' inn. Originally titled The Sea Cook before an editor changed it, Treasure Island was a rarity for a children's novel due to its depiction of unrestrained drinking and its moral ambiguity, with the charming and ruthless pirate Long John Silver proving himself to be not all bad.
Kidnapped (1886) was set amidst the historical events of 18th century Scotland. It told the story of Daniel Balfour, an orphaned 17-year-old boy who goes to live with his miserly Uncle Ebenezer. He doesn't know that his uncle cheated his father out of his estate. When Ebenezer's plan for Daniel's "accidental" death fails, he tricks him into going on board the brig Covenant, where he sells Daniel into slavery. Daniel is shanghaied and forced to work as the ship's new cabin boy. The Black Arrow (1888) was a swashbuckling adventure set during the Wars of the Roses. In it, young Dick Shelton rescues his lady, Joanna Sedley, becomes a knight, and joins the Black Arrow outlaw gang to avenge the murder of his father, Sir Harry Shelton. His father's murderer turns out to be Sir Daniel Brackley - Dick's guardian.
Though he wrote other books, Robert Louis Stevenson's most famous novel was the classic novella, The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde. (1888) In this celebrated tale of psychological horror, brilliant doctor Henry Jekyll is a good man troubled by his capacity for cruelty. So, he invents a potion that he hopes will remove the dark side of human nature once and for all. Instead, the potion unleashes it, transforming Jekyll into Edward Hyde, a younger, stronger, bestial man. Cruel, remorseless, misanthropic, and downright evil, Hyde consorts with prostitutes, steals, and causes all sorts of trouble. At first, Jekyll is able to use his potion to change back into himself, but soon, it requires larger doses. When the potion is used up, Jekyll tries to make more, but he can't - it was an imperfection in one of the ingredients that made it work. Realizing that his next transformation into Hyde will be permanent, Jekyll commits suicide by poisoning himself.
In addition to his novels, short story collections, and travelogues, Stevenson also wrote poetry collections. His most famous was a collection of poems for children called A Child's Garden Of Verses (1885). Containing the memorable poems My Shadow and The Lamplighter, the book would be popular with adults as well.
Believing it would suit his fragile health perfectly, in 1890, Stevenson bought 400 acres of land in Upolu, one of the Samoan islands. He moved there, built an estate in the village of Vailima, and took the native name Tusitala, which means teller of tales in Samoan. Believing that the European colonial officials who ruled Samoa were incompetent, Stevenson blasted them in his non-fiction book, A Footnote To History, (1892) which was a chronicle of the Samoan Civil War. The book caused such an uproar that Stevenson feared that the colonial officials would deport him.
In 1894, a bout with writer's block drove Stevenson into a deep depression. He feared he would never write again. Just when he had hit bottom, he suddenly regained his creative juices and began work on a new novel called Weir Of Hermiston. Believing that it was his best work and reportedly saying that "it's so good, it frightens me," Stevenson channeled all his energy into his writing, oblivious to the tremendous toll it was taking on his fragile health. His last novel would be unfinished.
Robert Louis Stevenson died suddenly on December 3rd, 1894, at the age of 44, most likely from a stroke. He remains one of the greatest and most influential writers of the 19th century.
Quote Of The Day "The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish." - Robert Louis Stevenson
Vanguard Video Today's video features a reading from Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novella, The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On November 12th, 1945, the famous non-fiction writer and journalist Tracy Kidder was born in New York City. After graduating from Phillips Academy prep school in 1963, Kidder enrolled at Harvard, where he initially majored in political science. He switched his major to English after taking a creative writing course taught by poet and translator Robert Fitzgerald.
After graduating from Harvard in 1967, Tracy Kidder served for two years in Vietnam as a first lieutenant for Military Intelligence. When his tour of duty was up, he returned to the U.S. and began a writing career, eventually enrolling in the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the University of Iowa, where he earned a Master's degree.
While studying at the University of Iowa, Kidder wrote his first non-fiction book. Commissioned by the Atlantic Monthly magazine, The Road To Yuba City (1974) was a straightforward, non-judgmental chronicle of the sensational Juan Corona murder trial in Yuba City, California. Corona, a farm labor contractor, was accused of preying on poor migrant farm workers, savagely murdering twenty-five of them by various methods including shooting, stabbing, and bludgeoning. Corona was convicted on all counts and sentenced to 25 consecutive life sentences, which he is currently serving.
In researching his book, Tracy Kidder rode along on trains packed with migrant farm workers, experiencing their living and working conditions firsthand. During the trial, he interviewed the victims' families and examined all facets of the case, exposing a surprising level of incompetence in both the prosecution and the defense, leaving the impression that the whole trial was horribly botched.
Unfortunately, The Road To Yuba City proved to be a critical and commercial failure. Kidder disowned it, stating in a 1995 interview that "I can't say anything intelligent about that book, except that I learned never to write about a murder case. The whole experience was disgusting, so disgusting, in fact, that in 1981 I went to Doubleday and bought back the rights to the book. I don't want The Road to Yuba City to see the light of day again." And it didn't. Today, copies are extremely hard to find and go for around $100 on eBay.
Tracy Kidder's next non-fiction book, however, proved to be a huge success in many ways. The Soul Of A New Machine (1981) brought readers into the middle of a turf war between teams of computer designers within Data General Corporation, a top minicomputer vendor in the 1970s. The engineers are presented with a daunting challenge: in order to compete with the new VAX minicomputer of rival company Digital Equipment Corporation, they must design a new 32-bit minicomputer in one year. Kidder's book takes a seemingly dry subject and turns it into a riveting suspense thriller, following the engineers as they face hectic schedules (including marathon 24-hour work sessions) and tremendous pressure to complete their task.
The Soul Of A New Machine became a big hit with both critics and readers, and is considered a classic work of journalism. It won Kidder a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1982.
Tracy Kidder continues to write great non-fiction books. House (1985) follows a team of home builders as they struggle to build a family's home on time, within their budget, and to their clients' satisfaction. The book follows the construction of the house from the drawing of the blueprints to the day that the family moves in. Among Schoolchildren (1989) follows dedicated, compassionate inner-city elementary school teacher Chris Zajac through an entire school year as she struggles to provide a decent education to her poor, neglected, mostly Hispanic students in a riveting and brutally honest look at what it really means to be a teacher.
Old Friends (1994) follows Lou and Joe, roommates at a nursing home in Northampton, Massachusetts. In Home Town, (2000), Kidder's subject is the town of Northampton itself, as he tells the stories of several of its colorful residents. Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003) is a biography of the noted physician and anthropologist Dr. Paul Farmer and a narrative about the struggles he faces as he tries to secure health care for the poor in third world countries.
In 2005, Kidder wrote My Detachment: A Memoir - an account of his experiences in the Vietnam War, from eager enlistee (and former ROTC cadet) to disillusioned veteran, as he comes to understand the absurdity and immorality of the war he volunteered to fight in. The book is reminiscent of classic antiwar satires such as Catch-22 and M*A*S*H.
Kidder's latest book, Strength In What Remains, was released earlier this year, in August, 2009. It follows the journey of Deogratias, a young African man from Burundi who in 1994 fled his country's bloody, genocidal civil war and settled in New York City. Nearly broke and barely able to speak English, Deogratias delivered groceries for slave wages by day and slept in Central Park at night. Driven by ambition and determination, Deogratias worked his way through medical school and became a doctor, then an American citizen. Kidder follows him as he returns to Burundi to build a medical clinic for his poor countrymen.
Tracy Kidder has proven himself to be one of the best contemporary writers of non-fiction.
Quote Of The Day "I think that the non-fiction writer's fundamental job is to make what is true believable." - Tracy Kidder
Vanguard Video Today's video features Tracy Kidder on the CSPAN program Q&A, discussing his latest book, Strength In What Remains. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On November 11th, 1821, the legendary Russian novelist, essayist, and philosopher Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, Russia. The second of six children, Fyodor's father Mikhail was a military surgeon and a violent alcoholic. He practiced at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor in Moscow. Although his parents forbade it, as a young boy, Fyodor would visit the patients in the hospital garden, and he loved to listen to their stories.
Mikhail Dostoevsky was known to exercise despotic rule over his children. After coming home from work, he would take a nap and force his children to keep silent and stand by him while he slept, swatting any flies that came near his head. In 1839, two years after losing his wife to tuberculosis, Mikhail died as well, supposedly from natural causes, though legend has it that his serfs, tired of his abuse, finally snapped during his latest violent, drunken rage and murdered him, restraining him and pouring vodka down his throat until he drowned.
In 1837, after his mother died, 16-year-old Fyodor Dostoevsky and his brother were sent to the Military Engineering Academy in Saint Petersburg, as their father was determined to make soldiers of them, even though Fyodor was epileptic - he suffered his first seizure at the age of nine. He would use his experience with the condition to create epileptic characters in his novels, such as Prince Myshkin in The Idiot (1869) and Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazov. (1881)
At the Academy, Dostoevsky hated mathematics, but came to love literature as he studied the works of William Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Blaise Pascal, and E.T.A. Hoffmann. He was a good student, did well on his exams, and graduated in 1841, receiving his commission. During his senior year, he wrote two romantic plays, influenced by the works of German playwright and poet Friedrich Schiller. Unfortunately, these early plays have been lost.
While serving in the army, (and being promoted to the rank of lieutenant) Dostoevsky translated Balzac's novel Eugenie Grandet into Russian. It received hardly any notice, so after he left the army in 1844, he began writing his own fiction. The following year, his first work, an epistolary novella called Poor Folk, was published in the magazine Sovremennik (The Contemporary) and received great acclaim. Legend has it that poet Nikolai Nekrasov, the editor of Sovremennik, said of Dostoevsky, "A new Gogol has arisen!"
At the age of 24, Fyodor Dostoevsky had become a literary celebrity. Unfortunately, his second novel, The Double (1846) didn't fare as well as his first. The Double, a psychological study of a government clerk who goes mad, believing that a co-worker has stolen his identity and become his doppelganger, was trashed by critics, despite Dostoevsky's eerily accurate depiction of one man's descent into schizophrenia. After the failure of The Double, Dostoevsky's fame began to fade.
In 1849, still struggling to get his writing career back on track, Fyodor Dostoevsky suffered another devastating setback. He was arrested for being a member of the Petrashevsky Circle, a liberal intellectual group founded by Mikhail Petrashevsky, a follower of French utopian socialist Charles Fourier. The Petrashevsky Circle opposed the czarist autocracy and Russian serfdom. Their members included writers, teachers, students, government officials, military officers, and others. Czar Nicholas I, fearful that the revolutions being waged in other countries would spread to Russia, mistakenly believed that the Petrashevsky Circle was a subversive revolutionary organization and ordered the arrest of its members.
After being forced to endure the psychological torture of a mock execution, Dostoevsky and his fellow Circle members had their death sentences commuted to prison terms. Dostoevsky was sentenced to four years of hard labor at a prison camp in Omsk, Siberia. While serving his time at the squalid, freezing, and filthy prison camp, he became disillusioned with Western ideas and converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity, planting the seeds of the next phase of his literary career. He was released from prison in 1854 and returned to the Army, where he was required to serve in the Siberian Regiment.
Dostoevsky served for five years in the Regiment's Seventh Line Battalion, stationed at a fortress in Kazakhstan. While there, he began an affair with Maria Isayeva, the wife of an acquaintance from Siberia. He married her in 1857, after the death of her husband. In 1859, the couple moved to Saint Petersburg, where Fyodor ran a series of unsuccessful literary magazines with his older brother, Mikhail. The last, Ephoka (Epoch) was shut down as the result of its coverage of the Polish Uprising of 1863.
The following year, Dostoevsky was devastated by the deaths of his wife and brother and plunged into depression and gambling addiction. Although he had published several memorable novels, including The Village Of Stepanchikovo (1859), The Insulted And Humiliated (1861), Notes From The House Of The Dead (1862), and Notes From Underground (1864), he gambled away what little he earned from them. By 1865, he was broke. While working on Crime And Punishment, a novel that would become one of his masterpieces, he also wrote a novella called The Gambler in order to fulfill his contract and avoid losing his copyrights to his publisher. It was a grim drama about a tutor who plunges into the depths of gambling addiction, inspired by the author's own ordeal.
With the publication of Crime And Punishment in 1886, Fyodor Dostoevsky established himself as one of the greatest novelists of all time. The landmark novel told the story of Raskolnikov, a poor student who drops out and moves into a tiny room in Saint Petersburg. Desperate for money and too proud accept help from even his closest friend, Raskolnikov finally reaches his breaking point and decides to rob and murder Alena, a nasty, elderly moneylender. Unfortunately, Alena's half-sister Lizaveta walks in on the crime scene, forcing Raskolnikov to kill her as well. Tortured by guilt, Raskolnikov falls into an unbalanced state, drawing the suspicion of police detective Porfiry.
Raskolnikov falls in love with Sonya, a devout Christian woman driven to prostitution by her father. Seeing her as a spirit guide, Raskolnikov confesses his crime to Sonya. When she reads him the gospel story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, Sonya gives Raskolnikov hope for his own redemption. He goes to the police, confesses, and is sent to a prison camp in Siberia. Sonya follows him, and the novel ends on a note of hope that Raskolnikov will be redeemed under her influence.
Dostoevsky would follow Crime And Punishment with another masterwork, The Idiot (1869). The tragic story of the love triangle between Christ-like, epileptic Prince Myshkin, fallen woman Nastasya Fillipovna, and Myshkin's friend Rogozhin, would not be translated into English until the 20th century. In his tragic quest to defend her honor from ridicule and contempt, Prince Myshkin's love for Nastasya is a pure, Christian kind of love, while Rogozhin's love for her comes from lustful passion, which eventually drives him to murder and madness. Meanwhile, another man, Ganya, wants to marry Nastasya just for her dowry, with which he hopes to improve his social status.
Dostoevsky's last novel is considered by most to be his masterpiece - and one of the great novels of all time. The Brothers Karamazov (1881) is a deep, philosophical 750+ page epic novel that explores and debates the nature of God, morality, and free will. Part satire of human corruption, part a meditation on faith in an age of skepticism, and part murder mystery and courtroom thriller, the novel follows Fyodor Karamazov, a buffoonish, lecherous miser, and his grown sons. When Fyodor is murdered, his oldest son Dmitri becomes the prime suspect. Each of the Karamazov brothers represents a part of the Russian character. Dmitri is a selfish lout, Ivan is a tortured intellectual, and Alyosha is the spiritual seeker. Although Alyosha is Dostoevsky's heroic prototype of the Christian idealist, the Church is not spared from criticism. As Russia stands on the brink of Socialist revolution, Ivan presents one of the most potent criticisms of organized religion ever written.
Although much admired as a writer, Dostoevsky courted controversy with views that were considered anti-Semitic. In A Writer's Diary, a two volume collection of essays and short stories, he perceived the ethnocentrism and influence of Jewry in Russia's border regions as a threat to Russian peasants living in those areas. However, he would later argue in favor of giving Jews equal rights in Russian society, advising Czar Alexander II to give Jews the right to assume positions of influence such as professorships at universities. He also expressed a desire to peacefully reconcile Christians and Jews so they could come together in brotherhood.
Fyodor Dostoevsky spent his last years living at the Staraya Russa resort in Northern Russia. He died of a lung hemorrhage from emphysema and an epileptic seizure on February 9th, 1881, at the age of 59. He still remains a major literary influence.
Quote Of The Day "The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month." - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Vanguard Video Today's video features a reading of the first chapter of Dostoevsky's existentialist novella Notes From Underground. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On November 10th, 1973, copies of Slaughterhouse-Five, (1969) the classic novel by legendary writer Kurt Vonnegut, were burned by administrators of a high school in Drake, North Dakota, as per the orders of the Drake School Board.
An English teacher at the high school had assigned Slaughterhouse-Five to his students for classroom study. One student complained to her mother about the profane language in the novel, and the disgruntled parent contacted the principal, who then brought the issue to the attention of the board of education.
The Drake School Board decided not only to ban Slaughterhouse-Five from the classroom and the school library, but also to confiscate students' personal copies of the novel and burn them. Most of the students refused to turn over their books, so school officials searched their lockers and took them. All the seized copies of Slaughterhouse-Five (and other books banned by the Board, including James Dickey's classic suspense thriller Deliverance) were tossed into the school's furnace and burned.
When Kurt Vonnegut learned that copies of his novel had been burned, he wrote the following to a member of the Drake School Board:
Dear Mr. McCarthy:
I am writing to you in your capacity as chairman of the Drake School Board. I am among those American writers whose books have been destroyed in the now famous furnace of your school.
If you were to bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life.
If you and your board are now determined to show that you in fact have wisdom and maturity when you exercise your powers over the education of your young, then you should acknowledge that it was a rotten lesson you taught young people in a free society when you denounced and then burned books — books you hadn't even read. You should also resolve to expose your children to all sorts of opinions and information, in order that they will be better equipped to make decisions and to survive.
Again: you have insulted me, and I am a good citizen, and I am very real.
Nine years later, in the case of Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment limits the authority of school boards to remove books from middle and high school libraries. Students had sued the Island Trees School Board over their decision to ban Slaughterhouse-Five and other books, which the Board had declared "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-[Semitic], and just plain filthy."
Public burnings of books still take place in the United States. Most recently, church groups have conducted public burnings of J.K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter fantasy novels, which they accuse of encouraging children to practice real witchcraft and dabble in devil worship.
Quote Of The Day "Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae." - Kurt Vonnegut
Vanguard Video Today's video features Kurt Vonnegut in a 2005 interview on the PBS program NOW, talking about Slaughterhouse-Five. Enjoy!
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