This Day In Writing History On September 30th, 1868, Little Women, the legendary, classic novel by Louisa May Alcott, was published. The novel was published in two parts. The second part, Good Wives, was published in 1869. In 1880, both parts would be combined and republished as a single volume, which is how the novel appears to this day.
Little Women, which tells the story of the four March sisters, (Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy) growing up in Concord, Massachusetts, was based on Alcott's experiences growing up with her own three sisters in Concord and Boston. Louisa modeled the character of Jo after herself. Fifteen-year-old Jo March is the second oldest of the sisters. Intelligent, outspoken, and tomboyish, Jo longs to be a writer. An early feminist, Jo finds herself at odds with the restrictions placed on women in the late 19th century, including not being able to go to college and being pressured to marry.
Through the course of the novel, the March sisters become friends with Theodore "Laurie" Laurence, the handsome, charming, affluent boy next door. An orphan, Laurie lives with his grandfather. He becomes especially close to Jo. They get into various scrapes as Laurie joins in the March sisters' adventures. The sisters also struggle to overcome their particular character flaws (Jo has a temper, Meg is vain, Beth is shy, and Amy selfish) in order to live up to their parents' expectations and become, well, little women.
The first part of Little Women became a huge hit with both critics and readers, and an overnight success, selling over 2,000 copies in 1868. Louisa May Alcott received many letters from fans (and visits from them at her home) clamoring for a sequel. So, in 1869, Alcott published the second part, Good Wives. Although her fans were begging for Jo to get married - especially to Laurie - she resisted the idea at first, believing that Jo should remain a "literary spinster."
Alcott changed her mind, and in Good Wives, married off not only Jo, but Meg and Amy as well. However, in a surprising twist, Jo marries Friedrich "Fritz" Bhaer, the poor German immigrant and professor who encouraged her to be a serious writer, while Amy marries Laurie. Alcott would later write "Jo should have remained a literary spinster, but so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she should marry Laurie, or somebody, that I didn't dare refuse and out of perversity went and made a funny match for her."
In reviews that proved to be prescient, the critics of the day proclaimed Little Women to be a classic. And to this day, it remains one of the most popular works of 19th century American literature. It would be followed by two sequels: Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886).
Little Women would later be adapted many times for the radio, stage, screen, and television.
Quote Of The Day "Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable." - Louisa May Alcott
Vanguard Video Today's video features the original theatrical trailer for the 1933 feature film version of Little Women, starring Katharine Hepburn as Jo. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On September 29th, 1547, the legendary Spanish novelist, playwright, and poet Miguel de Cervantes was born in Madrid, Spain. His father, Rodrigo de Cervantes, was a surgeon. Not much is known about his mother, Leonor de Cortinas.
Born into a noble family, Miguel de Cervantes was well-educated. In 1569, at the age of 22, he moved to Rome, where he immersed himself in the city's literature, art, and architecture. He found work as valet to a wealthy Catholic priest, Father Giulio Acquaviva, who would be ordained Cardinal the following year.
By then, Cervantes had enlisted in the Spanish naval elite corps, the Infanteria de Marina, stationed in Naples, which at the time was Spanish territory. In October of 1571, while serving on a ship in the Holy League fleet, (the Holy League was a coalition of allies that included the Vatican, Spain, the Republics of Venice and Genoa, and others under the command of John of Austria, King Philip II's illegitimate half brother) he saw action in the Battle of Lepanto.
The Battle of Lepanto was a brutal five-hour battle between the Holy League and the Ottoman Empire. When his ship came under fire, Cervantes was below deck, stricken with fever. He couldn't bear to stay hidden with other sick men while his comrades were fighting and dying, so he begged his commanding officer for permission to fight. Permission granted, he fought bravely against the Ottomans and was shot three times. One of the bullets rendered his left arm useless. The other two struck him in the chest. Ultimately, the Holy League won the battle.
After the battle was over, Cervantes would spend six months in hospital recovering from his injuries. He left before his wounds completely healed and returned to active duty as a solider. He would serve for a few more years. In September of 1575, he set sail from Naples to Barcelona, carrying letters of commendation to the King from the Duke de Sessa. As his ship approached the Catalan coast, it was attacked by Algerian pirates.
Although the captain and crew mounted a fierce resistance, most of the men were killed. The rest, including Cervantes, were taken prisoner and brought to Algiers. Cervantes spent five years as a slave before his parents and the Trinitarians (a Catholic religious order) were able to buy his freedom. During his captivity, he began to write, and he already had a lifetime of experiences to inspire him.
In December of 1584, Cervantes married his much younger girlfriend Catalina de Salazar y Palacios. Her uncle, Alonso de Quesada y Salazar would serve as the inspiration for Cervantes' most famous literary character, Don Quixote. The following year, Miguel de Cervantes' first major work was published. It was a novel called La Galatea.
On the surface, La Galatea seems like a typical pastoral romance, as it tells the story of two shepherds, best friends, who are in love with the same woman. However, Cervantes' dazzling debut novel is much more than that. Combining prose with poetry in a variety forms and styles, La Galatea is a deep and poetic examination of the nature of love. Although literary critics of the time and even Cervantes himself would claim that he couldn't write poetry, he proved his poetic talent in his first novel.
Although it's now recognized as a major work, La Galatea was only modestly successful when it was first published. His early plays also enjoyed just modest success. So, Cervantes spent the next twenty years living a nomadic existence, traveling and working at various jobs, including that of a tax collector and a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada. Financial and legal troubles would plague him, as he went bankrupt and was imprisoned twice on suspicion of embezzlement.
By 1606, Cervantes returned to Madrid, where he would live for the rest of his life. A year earlier, he published the first part of his greatest work, which established him as a brilliant, modern novelist far, far ahead of his time. It's also rightfully considered to be one of the greatest novels in the history of Western literature. El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de La Mancha, (The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha), later shortened to just Don Quixote, was a masterpiece of satirical comic adventure.
Alonso Quixano is a recently retired gentleman nearing his 50th birthday. He now lives a quiet life in the Spanish countryside, in the town of La Mancha, along with his niece and their housekeeper. Quixano spends practically all of his time reading books about knights and chivalry. He becomes so obsessed with these stories - which he believes are real and not works of fiction - that he rarely sleeps or eats. All he does is read, and people begin to believe that he's lost his mind.
One day, Quixano decides to become a knight himself. He dons a suit of armor, renames himself Don Quixote de La Mancha, and sets off in search of adventure - and to defend the honor of his mistress, the beautiful noblewoman Lady Dulcinea del Toboso, who is really Aldonza Lorenzo, a neighboring farm girl. Quixote performs his first act of chivalry when he saves a boy who'd been tied to a tree by his master for daring to ask for the wages he'd earned but was never paid. Unfortunately, after Quixote leaves, the boy is beaten by his master.
Later, Quixote has a run-in with some traders whom he believes have insulted his imaginary mistress, Lady Dulcinea. Quixote demands satisfaction and is severely beaten by one of the traders and left on the side of the road. He is later found by one of his neighbors, Pablo Crespo, who brings him home. Quixote plans another quest. His niece, the housekeeper, the parish curate, and the local barber try to dissuade him by burning his books about knights and chivalry, then sealing up the rest of his library and pretending that it was taken by a traveling magician.
Undeterred, Quixote turns to another neighbor, Sancho Panza, and persuades him to become his squire. Panza is a short, fat, vulgar man who is proud of his illiteracy. Though he seems dimwitted at first, Sancho proves to be far wiser and far more sensible than his master, Don Quixote. Together, they set off for adventure and during their travels, they meet prostitutes, priests, soldiers, goatherds, escaped convicts, scorned lovers, and other characters.
Don Quixote's overactive imagination leads him to embark on chivalrous quests. His tendency to violently intervene in matters that are none of his business - and his habit of never paying his debts - often results in humiliation and injury, with poor Sancho Panza getting the worst of it. In his most famous adventure, Quixote attacks a group of ferocious giants, which Sancho knows are just windmills. Eventually, Don Quixote is at last persuaded to go home, but the first part hints at yet another quest, stating that the records of it were lost.
Don Quixote didn't make a rich man of Miguel de Cervantes, but it did rescue him from poverty and bring him international fame. He continued to write. Mostly he wrote plays, but he also published a classic short story collection, Novelas Ejemplares (1613) and a dazzling epic poem, Viaje del Parnaso (1614). In 1614, an unknown writer using the pseudonym Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda published his own unauthorized sequel to Don Quixote. Avellaneda's work was held in low regard by critics and readers - then and now - because of its poor quality and numerous errors, including misnamed characters. Cervantes would pepper his own sequel with in-jokes and other potshots at Avellaneda's work.
Angered by Avellaneda's phony sequel to his novel, Cervantes was prodded to deliver what he had promised but never completed - a sequel to Don Quixote. He immediately began work on Don Quixote, Part Two which would be published in late 1615. Both novels would later be published in one epic volume, which first appeared in 1617. From then on, Don Quixote would be published as one long volume.
Where the first part of Don Quixote was pure farce, the second part is more serious - a philosophical treatise on deception. Quixote's imaginary quests are the result of incredibly cruel practical jokes played on him by wealthy patrons. These jokes take a great emotional toll on Quixote, who eventually regains his sanity and renounces chivalry. He dies a sane but sad and broken man. Don Quixote would be adapted numerous times for the stage, screen, radio, and television. Its most famous stage adaptation, a play called Man of La Mancha, would itself be adapted as an award winning Broadway musical. The musical's original lyrics, written by British poet W.H. Auden, were replaced due to their scathingly anti-establishment themes.
Miguel de Cervantes died in April of 1616 at the age of 68. His last great novel, Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda would be published posthumously in 1617.
Quote Of The Day "The pen is the tongue of the mind." - Miguel de Cervantes
Vanguard Video Today's video features a dramatic reading from Miguel de Cervantes' classic novel, Don Quixote. Enjoy!
It's Banned Books Week! This week is Banned Books Week. The annual event, which takes place during the last week of September, was first established in 1982 by the American Library Association. (ALA) The brainchild of the late, great librarian and activist Judith Krug, Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to read by encouraging people to read books that have been banned or challenged - targeted for banning. The event also promotes the freedom of libraries, schools, and bookstores to provide such materials.
To celebrate Banned Books Week, the ALA offers kits, posters, buttons, bookmarks, and guidelines for schools and public libraries who participate in the event by erecting special displays of banned or challenged books to raise awareness of these issues. Booksellers also create displays. Some go even further and invite authors of banned or challenged books to speak at their stores. They also sponsor annual essay contests dealing with freedom of expression.
Every year, the ALA compiles a list of the top 100 (or so) books that have been banned or challenged in the United States. What sort of publications make the list? Most of them are children's books that have been challenged or banned outright from schools and libraries across the country. The challenges and bans are largely the work of disgruntled parents and / or conservative or religious activist groups complaining about allegedly inappropriate content in the literary works.
A good example of this can be found the case of And Tango Makes Three. (2005). This charming picture book for young readers, written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, has earned the distinction of being the #1 most banned or challenged book for the past three years. The book is based on the true story of Roy and Silo, two captive male penguins living at the Central Park Zoo in New York City.
Zookeepers noticed that for six years, Roy and Silo lived together as mates - as though one of them were female - and engaged in mating rituals. When the penguins were observed trying to hatch an egg-shaped rock, the zookeepers gave them a real penguin egg to see if they could hatch it. Roy and Silo cared for the egg and successfully hatched it. The healthy female chick, named Tango by the zookeepers, was then adopted by Roy and Silo, who raised her as their own. All three penguins lived together as a family.
And Tango Makes Three caused a furor with conservative and religious groups. Across the country, efforts were made to remove the book from schools and public libraries. Some of these challenges reached the courts, where they all failed. In one case, a Federal Court rejected as unconstitutional a local resolution passed in Wichita Falls, Texas, that ordered the public library to remove And Tango Makes Three, along with another similarly themed controversial book (Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman) from the children's section and place them in the restricted adult section of the library.
Here's my own list of the top five books, both modern classics and those from the past, which have been banned or challenged over the years, and still face attempts at censorship:
1. Bridge To Terabithia (1977) by Katherine Paterson. This beloved and acclaimed children's novel, a favorite of both young and old readers alike, (and one of my all time favorites) is still popular over thirty years since it was first published, and still appears on teachers' assigned reading lists. It's also the most banned or challenged children's book of all time. Set in rural Virginia, it tells the heart wrenching tale of Jess Aarons, a poor, lonely, artistically gifted young farm boy who finds a soul mate in an intelligent, imaginative, tomboyish city girl named Leslie Burke.
Together, Jess and Leslie create a magical, imaginary world of their own, where they rule as king and queen. When tragedy strikes and separates them forever, Jess must use all the inner strength Leslie gave him as he struggles to cope with his loss. This beautiful novel has been attacked for various reasons. Allegedly objectionable elements include its themes of death and grief, its bleakness and stark realism, the author's dialectic use of mildly profane language, the ridiculing of authority figures (parents and teachers) and the negative depictions of Christians and Christianity.
2. The Catcher In The Rye (1951) by J.D. Salinger. Salinger's brilliant, celebrated coming-of-age novel about rebellious, angst-ridden troubled teen Holden Caulfield and his journey of self-discovery has been attacked since it was first published. A staple of study for high school English classes, this novel has been attacked for its frank language, sexual content, alleged promoting of smoking, drinking, lying, and sexual promiscuity, and for other reasons. When teachers assign their students to read The Catcher In The Rye, they are often challenged by disgruntled parents and conservative groups, who also try to have the novel removed from school libraries.
3. The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain. This classic novel, a sequel to Twain's classic The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, features Tom's friend Huckleberry Finn on an adventure of his own. This book has been attacked by African-American activists for its frequent use of the racial epithet nigger and for its allegedly racist stereotyping of blacks. Twain scholars point out that when Huckleberry Finn meets runaway slave Jim, while initially opposed to the idea of Jim becoming a free man, Huck changes his mind after befriending the slave and traveling with him. Huck sees Jim as a good man who deserves to be free and helps him escape, even though doing so is illegal - it's considered a form of theft. Twain himself despised slavery and used his book to assail it, along with the Southern view that blacks were sub-human. Twain also assailed the Southern practice of lynching. In using the word nigger, Twain criticizes his fellow Southerners' racism by letting them speak their own ugly language. Ironically, when the novel was first published in 1884, it was attacked for its anti-racist stance.
4. The Harry Potter Series (1997-2007) by J.K. Rowling. Scottish author J.K. Rowling created a pop culture phenomenon with her series of seven fantasy novels about a young British orphan boy named Harry Potter who learns that he is a wizard. Rescued from his nasty muggle (non-magical) relatives by the giant Hagrid, Harry is whisked away into the hidden world of wizards and witches. Enrolled at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry will learn to master his magic (with the guidance of his mentor, Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore) and meet his ultimate destiny - to face and destroy Lord Voldemort, the evil dark wizard who murdered his parents - as the forces of good and evil in the magical world prepare for war.
Rowling's epic novels have inspired millions of children to put down their video game controllers and discover the joy of reading. She has also earned millions of adult fans as well - and the wrath of religious conservatives who claim that the Harry Potter novels encourage children to dabble in witchcraft and Satanism - despite the fact that magic is depicted as a gift one is born with and not related to a religion. Nevertheless, the books have been challenged frequently, especially in the conservative Southern states, where attempts have been made to remove the books from teachers' assigned reading lists and school libraries.
5. The His Dark Materials Trilogy (1995-2000) by Philip Pullman. British author Philip Pullman's brilliant epic fantasy trilogy is set in an alternate universe, on a world similar to Earth, in a country similar to England, where everyone has a daemon - an externalization of the soul that takes the form of a shape-shifting creature (and dear friend) that always remains by their side. The heroine is a bright, brash, imaginative, and mischievous 12-year-old girl named Lyra Belacqua. Her daemon is called Pantalaimon. Lyra is an orphan who lives with her uncle, Lord Asriel, at Oxford University.
When Lord Asriel makes an important discovery - the nature of Dust, the fabric of the universe - that threatens to invalidate the cruel, repressive, Catholic-esque monotheistic religion whose clerical body (the Magisterium) rules the world - his life is endangered. Lyra finds herself at the center of a prophecy. She is the chosen one who will not only bring down the Magisterium on her world, but bring about a revolution in Heaven as well. The being worshiped as God is actually not a benevolent god but an evil, dictatorial angel called Metatron who seized power over Heaven and the universe from The Authority - the first angel to emerge from the Dust - who is now aged and dying.
In The Subtle Knife, the second book in the trilogy, Lyra meets Will Parry, a boy her age from another universe and world (ours) who becomes her first love and partner in the prophecy, which is a reversal of John Milton's Paradise Lost, from which the trilogy got its name. Lyra and Will become the new Adam and Eve, but instead of causing the fall of Man with their sin of fornication, they cause the fall of Metatron (God) and save Man. Where the Harry Potter novels invoked the wrath of religious conservatives over the issue of witchcraft, the His Dark Materials trilogy made them go ballistic, accusing author Philip Pullman of blasphemy, anti-Catholicism, and promoting atheism to children. Others complained about the books' violence, gore, sexual content, and the promotion of a heroine who is disobedient by nature and an accomplished liar.
The most (allegedly) objectionable elements of the story occur near the end. Lyra and Will free the Authority from confinement so he can die peacefully and become part of the Dust. Although an act of mercy, critics see this as the symbolic killing of God. In order to fulfill the prophecy, Will and Lyra make love. The sex scene is tastefully handled, as is the previous awakening of sexual feelings within Lyra. While Pullman's American publisher, Scholastic, Inc. (who also published the Harry Potter novels) censored some passages in the U.S. version of the third book, The Amber Spyglass, the entire trilogy of novels still faces challenges and bans in the United States.
Thanks to the ALA's Banned Books Week, more and more people have become aware of these attempts at censoring books in the United States and around the world, and the threat they pose to the individual's freedom to read what he wants and the freedom of libraries and bookstores to provide him and others with the material. The human rights organization Amnesty International joins the ALA in celebrating Banned Books Week by bringing attention to the plight of those around the world who are persecuted for what they write, publish, distribute, and read.
The new fall issue of Mused has two of my short stories: "Anna," recently critiqued at Fiction, and "Sewing Hotline," an old Practice assignment. Thanks so much for the great feedback.
My poems Lighthouse and Sanctuary were published in August and September respectively in the Island Breeze, a monthly Outer Banks, NC. publication. The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and the village of Buxton were the inspiration for these poems, and it's always nice to see them published where they were conceived.
Shruthi Rao
My first online publication! "Letting Go", which was written forPractice, has been accepted by Joyful! and will be published inDecember. Thanks to the lovely folks at Practice who constantly offersuggestions and encouragement.
Special, and heartfelt thanks to Wayne Scheer, who set the ball rolling.
Wayne Scheer
My story, "Doing Penance," has been accepted by Rougarou, an onlineliterary journal of the University of Louisiana at Lafayettte. The story willappear in their Spring issue.
Thanks to the folks at Fiction who offered helpful critiques. This onebegan in Practice, so thanks to those critters as well.
Dew on the Kudzu has accepted "Spring Comes to Mississippi" for theirDecember issue.
I have a humorous (I hope) essay up at Clever Magazine, "Gardner'sAnonymous."
Pat St. Pierre
A black and white photo of mine is up at Ramshackle Review, issue #1.
My nonfiction work "Treasurers From My Mother" was accepted by Joyful! for the December issue.
Three of my photos are up at Raven Images. (Scroll toward the end).
This Day In Writing History On September 24th, 1896, the legendary writer F. Scott Fitzgerald was born. He was born Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald in St. Paul, Minnesota. Fitzgerald was named after his famous distant relative, poet Francis Scott Key, but family and friends called him Scott. He spent most of his childhood in upstate New York, but returned to Minnesota in 1908 after his father was fired from his job at Procter & Gamble.
When he was twelve years old, Fitzgerald's first short story was published in a school newspaper; it was a detective story. After returning to Minnesota, Fitzgerald spent three years at St. Paul Academy, but was expelled at the age of 16 for neglecting his studies. However, not long afterward, when he attended Newman School in Hackensack, he buckled down and excelled at academics. In 1913, at the age of 17, Fitzgerald entered Princeton University, where he met and became friends with future writers and literary critics Edmund Wilson and John Peale Bishop.
Also at Princeton, Fitzgerald became involved with and wrote for the Princeton Triangle Club, a student theater troupe that puts on an original, student-written musical comedy every year, then takes the show on tour over the winter holiday season. Fitzgerald's experience writing for the Club inspired him to write his first novel, The Great Egoist. He submitted it for publication to Charles Scribner's Sons. The editor praised Fitzgerald's writing, but ultimately rejected his novel.
During World War 1, Fitzgerald left Princeton to join the Navy, but the war ended shortly after he enlisted. He was stationed at Camp Sheridan, where he met a girl named Zelda Sayre, the daughter of an Alabama State Supreme Court judge. They fell in love and became engaged. In 1919, Fitzgerald moved into an apartment in New York City, where he took a job at an advertising firm and wrote short stories on the side, but he was unable to convince Zelda that he could support her. The engagement was called off.
Fitzgerald moved back in with his parents in St. Paul and began revising his previously rejected novel. Practically re-written and retitled This Side Of Paradise, the novel was accepted by Scribner's for publication. It was published on March 26th, 1920, and became one of the most popular novels of the year. A classic of the flapper generation, the novel told the story of Amory Blaine, a handsome young Princeton University student and aspiring writer who learns a bitter lesson about status seeking and greed via two doomed romances with wealthy debutantes.
The success of Fitzgerald's novel, which also helped raise the prices of his short stories, enabled him to make a decent living, so he and Zelda got back together and were married at St. Patrick's Cathedral. They would have only one child, a daughter, Frances Scott "Scottie" Fitzgerald, born on October 26th, 1921. The 1920s proved to be an influential decade in F. Scott Fitzgerald's development as a writer. His second novel, The Beautiful And Damned (1922) was a semi-autobiographical story of a wealthy heir, Anthony Patch, his relationship with his wife, Gloria, and his struggle with alcoholism. It was a brilliantly written character study, but Fitzgerald's third novel would prove to be his masterpiece.
The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, was a masterful chronicle of the era that Fitzgerald dubbed the "Jazz Age." - the post World War 1 era of Prohibition, organized crime, uncontrolled drinking, flappers, and other rowdy, disaffected youth. Set during the summer of 1922, the novel is narrated by Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner and World War 1 veteran who moves to New York City to seek his fortune. At a lavish party, he meets the host - a mysterious wealthy man named Jay Gatsby, who claims to know Nick from his Army days during the Great War.
Nick and Gatsby strike up an odd, yet close friendship. Nick is bemused when Gatsby introduces him to Meyer Wolfsheim, a Jewish underworld figure. Gatsby is also a former suitor of Nick's cousin, Daisy Buchanan, now the selfish, spoiled wife of millionaire Tom Buchanan. Nick arranges a meeting between Gatsby and Daisy. The two begin an affair which angers Tom, even though he has a mistress on the side. Nick stands by his friend Gatsby and soon finds himself caught in a web of adultery, decadence, and ultimately, murder.
Within a year of its initial publication, The Great Gatsby was adapted as a Broadway play and a feature film, but the novel was not popular and sold less than 25,000 copies during Fitzgerald's lifetime. However, when it was republished in 1945 and 1953, it quickly gained a huge readership and a deserved reputation as one of the greatest American novels of all time. It would be adapted again as a feature film, the most acclaimed version released in 1974 and starring Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby.
During the 1920s, F. Scott Fitzgerald made several visits to Europe, most notably Paris, where he became friends with many of the American expatriate writers living there, including Ernest Hemingway, who became his closest friend. They would spend lots of time drinking, talking, and exchanging manuscripts. Fitzgerald helped boost Hemingway's career. Unfortunately, Hemingway and Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda, couldn't stand each other.
Hemingway accused Zelda of being insane (which she was) and encouraging Fitzgerald to drink heavily in order to distract him from writing novels. That way, he could devote his attention to cranking out short stories strictly for money to keep Zelda in the life of luxury to which she was accustomed. Zelda accused Hemingway of using Fitzgerald to further his own career. She also accused him of having a homosexual affair with her husband. There is no evidence to support this accusation, which was obviously the product of Zelda's paranoia. To punish his wife for questioning his masculinity, Fitzgerald slept with a female prostitute and flaunted it. The conflict between Hemingway and Zelda resulted in the ending of Fitzgerald's friendship with him and a lifelong animosity between the two men.
At first, the Fitzgeralds' marriage had been productive. Zelda's diaries and large collection of correspondence would inspire Scott's writings; sometimes he even quoted passages from her writings. But their alcoholism and Zelda's worsening schizophrenia began to take its toll. In 1934, Fitzgerald finally published his long awaited fourth novel, Tender Is The Night. Fitzgerald had started writing the novel in 1932, while Zelda was hospitalized for her schizophrenia.
Tender Is The Night received glowing reviews and briefly made the bestseller list, but its reception was nowhere near as big as that of The Great Gatsby. In serious financial trouble, Fitzgerald spent the remainder of his life writing commercial short stories for money and working for Hollywood movie studio MGM as a screenwriter for hire - work he found degrading. He worked on many scripts and even wrote some unfilmed scenes for Gone With The Wind.
Fitzgerald would mock himself in a series of 17 short stories known as the Pat Hobby Stories, which would later be republished as a collection. Pat Hobby, a once great screenwriter of the silent film era, is now a broken down, drunken hack haunting studio lots looking to write for a few dollars, or better yet, an on-screen credit. His schemes usually backfire and result in more humiliation.
By the late 1930s, many years of heavy drinking had taken a toll on F. Scott Fitzgerald's health. In late 1940, he suffered two heart attacks. On December 21st, 1940, the day after he suffered his second heart attack, he suffered a third, massive heart attack and died at the age of 44. Among the mourners at his wake was writer Dorothy Parker, who reportedly wept and murmured, "the poor son of a bitch" - a line from Jay Gatsby's funeral in The Great Gatsby.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's last novel, The Last Tycoon, was published posthumously in 1942.
Quote Of The Day "An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Vanguard Video Today's video features the original theatrical trailer for the rare 1926 silent film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel, The Great Gatsby. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On September 23rd, 480 BCE, the legendary ancient Greek playwright and poet Euripides was born on the Greek island of Salamis. Evidence suggests that he was born into a wealthy family. He served as a cup-bearer (a royal court officer whose duty was to serve drinks at the royal table) for Apollo's dancers, but soon came to question his religion after being influenced by the great thinkers of the day, including Sophocles, Protagoras, and Anaxagoras.
Euripides was married twice; his wives were Choerile and Melito, though it's not clear which was his first wife. He had three sons. Supposedly, he also had a daughter who was killed by a rabid dog, though this may have been a joke attributed to the comic playwright Aristophanes, who often poked fun at Euripides.
Not much else is known about Euripides' private and public life. In addition to his literary talents, he was an accomplished painter and athlete. He once traveled to Syracuse, Sicily, and was involved in various public and political activities. At the invitation of King Archelaus I of Macedon, Euripides left Athens and moved to Macedonia, where he took up permanent residence.
It has been said that Euripides wrote his plays in a cave on the Island of Salamis; the ten-chambered cave, now known as the Cave of Euripides, was the subject of an archaeological dig in the 1990s. While the complete manuscripts of many of his plays (including his very best ones) survived, many more plays were lost, with only fragments or a handful of lines left to prove their existence.
In 455 BCE, Euripides competed for the first time in the City Dionysia, the famous Athenian dramatic festival. He entered his second play, Medea, which was written in 431 BCE. The classic play was Euripides' take on the Medea myth. After completing his quest for the Golden Fleece, Jason leaves his wife Medea so that he can marry Glauce, the daughter of King Creon. Driven to great anger and despair by this betrayal, Medea poisons Glauce and Creon, then takes an even crueler revenge on Jason by murdering her own sons - Jason's children.
Euripides' Medea is a sympathetic character who suffers from the disadvantage of being a woman in a stifling patriarchal society that regards her as property to be acquired and discarded at will. This and her identity as a barbarian woman would raise the ire of ancient Greek audiences. Euripides' proto-feminist treatment of women, his sympathetic depiction of intelligent slaves, and his meditations on the irrationality of religion would establish him as a progressive thinker and a modernist playwright way ahead of his time. His fellow playwright Sophocles said that while he portrayed men as they ought to be, Euripides portrayed them as they were.
Medea placed third in the City Dionysia, reportedly because Euripides refused to brown nose the judges. Another of his classic plays, The Trojan Women (415 BCE), would win second prize. The play, produced during the Peloponnesian War, is considered a biting commentary on the capture of the Island of Melos by the Athenians earlier that year, and the Athenians' subsequent slaughter and enslavement of their fellow Greeks.
Euripides' last and greatest play, The Bacchae, completed before his death in 406 BCE, would finally win him first prize at the City Dionysia competition when it was performed a year later. The prize would be awarded posthumously. The Bacchae is a gruesome tragedy based on the myth of King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agave, who were punished by the god Dionysus (King Pentheus' cousin) for refusing to worship him.
Euripides would also write Cyclops, the only complete satyr play (the ancient Greek equivalent of bawdy burlesque comedy) to survive. He died of illness at the age of 74, most likely the result of his exposure to the harsh Macedon winter. His works would influence the New Comedy, Roman drama, and the French classicists. His influence as a dramatist continues to this day.
Quote Of The Day "Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing." - Euripides
Vanguard Video Today's video features a clip of a rare 1959 performance of Euripides' Medea, with Dame Judith Anderson in the title role. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On September 22nd, 1598, the legendary English playwright, poet, and actor Ben Jonson was arrested and charged with manslaughter. It would not be Jonson's first brush with the law; he and fellow playwright Thomas Nashe had been previously jailed for obscenity following a performance of their play The Isle of Dogs, which, sadly, has been lost, as all existing copies of the script were destroyed by the authorities. Jonson's arrest for manslaughter came about as the result of his duel with Gabriel Spenser, an actor who belonged to the same company, that of Philip Henslowe, who managed the Rose Theatre. Jonson was known for his foul temper and frequent quarrels with other actors - especially those performing in his plays. However, the exact reason for his duel with Spenser is not known.
Swords were the chosen weapons for this particular duel. Although the blade of his sword was ten inches shorter than that of his opponent, Jonson killed Spenser to win the duel. (Ironically, Spenser had previously killed another man in an earlier duel.) He was immediately arrested, charged with manslaughter, and incarcerated at Newgate Prison. Jonson pled guilty, but avoided the hangman's rope by converting to Catholicism and invoking the Benefit of Clergy, which allowed a defendant to request that he be tried under canon law by a bishop instead of under secular law by a judge.
At his trial, Jonson was able to avoid the death penalty and receive a light sentence by reciting a bible verse (Psalm 51) in Latin and reading a passage from the Bible to prove his literacy. He was sentenced to be branded on his left thumb and to forfeit his property to the Church, after which, he was released from prison and returned to writing plays and acting.
Earlier that year, Jonson had enjoyed his first big success as a playwright when he staged a production of his classic play, Every Man in His Humour. The play was performed by England's most famous acting company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, at the Curtain Theatre. One of the first actors to be cast in the play was the legendary actor, playwright, and poet William Shakespeare.
Although Jonson would also become famous for his criticisms of Shakespeare's plays - he once quipped that Shakespeare never revised his plays when they should have been revised heavily - he actually admired Shakespeare and also said of him, "there was ever more in him to be praised than pardoned." When Jonson learned of Shakespeare's death, he said, "he was not of an age, but for all time."
Quote Of The Day "Art hath an enemy called Ignorance." - Ben Jonson
Vanguard Video Today's video features a reading of Ben Jonson's classic poem, To Celia. Enjoy!
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This Day In Writing History On September 21st, 1947, the legendary horror novelist Stephen King was born. He was born in Portland, Maine. When King was two years old, his father left the house, claiming that he was going to buy cigarettes. Instead, he walked out on the family, leaving King's mother Ruth to raise Stephen and his older brother David alone. She moved the family around several times, to several different states, before returning to live in Durham, Maine, where Ruth also cared for her ailing parents until they died.
As a young boy, Stephen King apparently witnessed the death of one of his friends, who had been struck and killed by a train. King has no memory of the incident, but that day, after he went out to play with his friend, he came home seemingly in shock and unable to speak. The King family then learned of his friend's death. Some have speculated that the roots of the dark and disturbing images in King's horror novels may lie within his repressed memory of witnessing the gruesome death of his childhood friend. King has rejected this theory.
King's interest in writing was awakened, when, as a boy, while exploring the attic with his brother, he found a collection of paperback books that had belonged to his father. The books included an anthology of stories published by Weird Tales magazine and a collection of short stories by horror master H.P. Lovecraft, whom King has credited as a major influence. By the time he started high school, King had become enamored with EC's popular line of horror comics, including Tales From The Crypt, which King later would pay tribute to in his original screenplay for the horror film Creepshow.
As a high school student, King began writing stories and articles for Dave's Rag, a newspaper his brother published and printed with a mimeograph machine. He also sold copies of his stories to his classmates. King's first commercially published story, I Was A Teenage Grave Robber, was published in 1965, in a serialized format, by a fanzine called Comics Review. A revised version of the story would be published in 1966 by another fanzine, Stories Of Suspense, as In A Half-World Of Terror.
In 1966, Stephen King attended the University of Maine, where he studied English. He wrote a column for the student newspaper called Steve King's Garbage Truck and took part in a writing workshop. To pay for his tuition, King took odd jobs, including one at an industrial laundry that would inspire him to write his classic short story, The Mangler. King's first published story as a professional writer, The Glass Floor, was published in 1967 by Startling Mystery Stories.
After he graduated college in 1970, Stephen King obtained a teaching certificate, but was unable to find work as a teacher, so he continued doing odd jobs and supplemented his income by selling short stories to men's magazines such as Cavalier and Swank. (At the time, it was common for men's magazines, from high-paying markets like Playboy and Penthouse to smaller ones like Cavalier and Swank, to publish short stories as well as articles and pictorials.) Many of these early stories would appear in King's 1978 short story collection, Night Shift. In 1971, King married his college sweetheart, writer Tabitha Spruce, who would bear him three children - Naomi, Joe, and Owen.
Joe Hillstrom King would become a best selling and award winning novelist, writing under the pseudonym Joe Hill - the name of the famous labor leader for whom he was named. Owen King would become a writer as well, and Naomi would become an ordained minister for the Unitarian Universalist Church.
While teaching at the Hampden Academy, Stephen King began working on his first novel while battling a drinking problem that would last a decade. After accruing numerous rejection slips for other writings, King became so discouraged that he threw an early draft of his novel in the trash, convinced that it would never sell. His wife rescued the manuscript and encouraged him to finish it. To his surprise, Carrie was published. It told the story of Carrie White, a lonely, awkward, and unattractive teenage girl who is tormented by both her cruel classmates and her fanatically religious mother. Carrie discovers that she possesses telekinetic powers - the ability to move objects with her mind. When her classmates play a cruel joke and humiliate her at the prom, Carrie uses her powers to unleash horrific vengeance. Then she takes equally horrific revenge on her mother.
King received a $2,500 advance on the first edition hardcover publication of Carrie, which wasn't much, even back then. Later, when King's agent called to tell him that the paperback rights to Carrie had been sold for $400,000 he couldn't believe it. Stunned and in shock, King later said that "The only thing I could think to do was go out and buy my wife a hair dryer." King moved his family to Southern Maine so he could be near his ailing mother, who was dying of uterine cancer. He began writing his second novel, Salem's Lot. Still in the grip of a severe drinking problem, King was drunk the day before he gave the eulogy at his mother's funeral.
Salem's Lot was published in 1975. It told the story of a small New England town infested with vampires. It would be adapted as an acclaimed TV miniseries in 1979 and remade in 2004. In 1976, the first feature film adaptation of Stephen King's works was released. Carrie, directed by Brian De Palma, starred Sissy Spacek as the telekinetic teen, Piper Laurie as her demented mother, and, in early roles, William Katt as Carrie's prom date and John Travolta as the boyfriend of Carrie's archenemy. Amy Irving played Sue Snell, the remorseful classmate who befriends Carrie. The acclaim and success of the Carrie movie would make King's early career. A sequel, The Rage: Carrie 2, would be released in 1999. It really had nothing to do with King's novel. It was about another teenage girl with telekinetic powers who had been sired by Carrie White's philandering father. King's novel would be adapted as a Broadway musical in 1988 and a TV movie in 2o02.
In 1977, Stephen King would publish his third novel. This book, and the 1980 feature film adaptation of it (which King hated) would make him a household name and establish him as the master of horror. The Shining was set in Colorado, (where the King family was living while Stephen worked on the novel) and was inspired by King's visit to the Stanley Hotel, a resort hotel located near Estes Park, Colorado. The Shining tells the story of Jack Torrance, an aspiring writer and recovering alcoholic who takes a job as winter caretaker at the huge and world famous Overlook Hotel in Colorado.
Torrance was a prep school teacher, but his alcoholism cost him his job and nearly ended his marriage. In the same year, while in drunken rages, Jack accidentally broke his son's arm and deliberately assaulted an obnoxious student. He sees his caretaker's job as a means of providing for his family and rebuilding his life. Now sober, he plans to write during his downtime. Excited to begin his new life, Jack packs up his wife Wendy and their five-year-old son Danny and moves them to the Overlook. The fact that the hotel's previous caretaker went insane and murdered his family before killing himself doesn't dissuade Jack from the taking the job.
Little Danny, however, is terrified. He possesses formidable psychic powers and senses that something bad is going to happen at the Overlook. When they arrive at the hotel, Danny meets head chef Dick Hallorann. Dick possesses the same psychic powers as Danny, which he calls "shining." He tells Danny that the horrifying images he sees can't hurt him, but warns him to stay out of room 217. (Room 217 was the room that the Kings stayed in at the Stanley Hotel) Jack Torrance uncovers information about the Overlook's past. Many murders and suicides took place in the hotel, which seems to have been haunted from the day it was built - on an Indian burial ground. Nevertheless, Jack intends to stay and do his job. As Danny struggles to deal with his horrific psychic visions, an evil presence begins to erode Jack's sanity until it possesses him completely.
In 1980, legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick directed a feature film adaptation of The Shining. The movie starred Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, Shelley Duvall as Wendy, Danny Lloyd as Danny, and Scatman Crothers as Dick Hallorann. The combination of Kubrick's tight direction, the claustrophobic cinematography, the foreboding soundtrack, and Jack Nicholson's bravura performance made it a cult classic horror film that remains hugely popular to this day. However, Stephen King hated the movie, as Kubrick's screenplay took great liberties with King's novel and changed the ending.
In 1997, The Shining was adapted as a TV miniseries. It featured a teleplay written by Stephen King himself, and solid performances by Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay as Jack and Wendy Torrance, Courtland Mead as Danny, and a wonderful Melvin Van Peebles as Dick Hallorann. It had a great technical hook - it was filmed on location at the Stanley Hotel in Colorado - the hotel where King and his family stayed, which inspired him to write the novel. While competently directed by Mick Garris, King's teleplay is ultimately sunk by its low budget, bland cinematography, and the stifling censorship restrictions of the commercial TV medium. Although faithful to the novel, the miniseries lacks the atmosphere and intensity of Kubrick's movie, which is far more frightening.
Not content to rest on his laurels, Stephen King continued to write prolifically, authoring dozens of horror novels, most of which were adapted for the screen. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, King published a series of novels under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. He did this as an experiment to answer a question that had been nagging him: was his success an accident of fate? The Bachman novels included Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Roadwork (1981), and The Running Man (1982), which were early, unpublished novels that had been written before Carrie and later revised.
After the last Bachman novel, Thinner, was published in 1984, Steve Brown, a bookstore clerk from Washington D.C., noticed many similarities between Bachman's writing style and Stephen King's. Determined to uncover the truth, Brown looked up the publisher's records in the Library of Congress and confirmed that Richard Bachman was in fact Stephen King. After his pseudonym was exposed, King issued a press release announcing the death of Richard Bachman from "cancer of the pseudonym." He would later resurrect Bachman in 1996, publishing The Regulators under Bachman's name. The novel was a companion piece to King's novel, Desperation, which was released at the same time. In 2006, King published Blaze, a rewrite of an unpublished Bachman novel that had been written in 1973. He had found the original manuscript in a trunk.
After King's pseudonym was outed, the first four Richard Bachman novels were republished in one large volume, The Bachman Books. They were also published separately. After three school shooting incidents (in 1989, 1996, and 1997) occurred, where the shooters were later found to have copies of Rage in their lockers, Stephen King pulled his first Bachman novel out of circulation. Rage, which had been first published in 1977, told the story of Charlie Decker, a mentally disturbed high school student who finally snaps.
After returning to school following a suspension for assaulting a teacher with a wrench, Charlie brings a gun to class, kills two teachers, and holds his classmates hostage, forcing them to play a version of "truth or dare" where they must expose their deepest secrets, feelings, and fears. The hostage situation turns into a kind of group therapy session that proves beneficial for most of the hostages. As the police surround the school, they find that they're dealing with an intelligent, cunning, and dangerous psychotic. And they're about to make a bad situation even worse.
King pulled Rage out of print because he feared that it might inspire more troubled teens to try and recreate his main character's rampage. In 2007, after troubled Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui went on a shooting rampage, it was revealed that Cho's professors, as well as the university's administrators and mental health staff, were aware of Cho's disturbing writings, but did nothing about them. In an article about this, written by King for Entertainment Weekly magazine, King said that "Certainly in this sensitized day and age, my own college writing - including a short story called Cain Rose Up and the novel Rage - would have raised red flags, and I'm certain someone would have tabbed me as mentally ill because of them..."
Although he is affectionately known as the "master of horror," King has occasionally ventured into other genres. In 1982, he published an anthology of novellas called Different Seasons which featured a coming of age story called The Body, later adapted as a popular movie called Stand By Me, and a moving prison drama, Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption, which was filmed as the acclaimed movie, The Shawshank Redemption. Another novella, Apt Pupil, a psychological thriller, would also be filmed, but the movie omits the novella's shocking ending. King's most popular non-horror venture would prove to be his magnum opus. The Dark Tower series of novels, which began with The Gunslinger (1982), was an epic dark fantasy set in an alternate reality, on a parallel world similar to Earth, that is slowly dying.
The Gunslinger opens with gunfighter and knight errant Roland of Gilead chasing "the man in black," an evil sorcerer, across a desert. The land is a nightmarish, surreal wasteland reminiscent of the 19th century American Old West. Through the series of seven novels, Roland pursues his quarry while on a quest to reach the Dark Tower. The Dark Tower series is Stephen King at his best, displaying his formidable skill as a storyteller. Meticulously detailed and masterfully plotted, the Dark Tower novels are immensely popular with King fans, many of whom claim the series as their favorites of King's novels.
On June 19th, 1999, Stephen King's incredible and prolific literary career - and his life - nearly came to a sudden end. While out for his daily walk in Center Lovell, Maine, King was struck from behind by a minivan. The force of impact threw King's body some 14 feet off the road. When a Deputy Sheriff arrived on the scene, King was barely conscious, but able to give out his emergency contact information - though he had suffered a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures of his right leg, a lacerated scalp, and a broken hip. After enduring five operations in five days, and beginning the agonies of physical therapy, King started to write again. He needed to write, if only to distract himself from the pain. He resumed work on a non-fiction book, On Writing. Also during his recovery, he wrote Dreamcatcher, (2001) which would prove to be one of his most viscerally graphic horror novels. At first, he was in too much pain and discomfort to write with a computer, so he wrote longhand, with a fountain pen and paper.
Bryan Smith, the driver who had struck Stephen King, claimed to have been distracted by his dog, but he had nearly a dozen drunk driving offenses on his record. King was outraged when the local prosecutor allowed Smith to cop a plea. In exchange for his guilty plea, Smith's driver's license was suspended for a year and he received a six-month jail sentence - which was also suspended. In an eerie coincidence, on September 21st, 2000 - Stephen King's 53rd birthday - Bryan Smith was found dead in his trailer at the age of 42. Although the official cause of death was listed as an accidental overdose of the prescription painkiller fentanyl, rumors began to fly that either King had Smith killed or one of the horror master's fans took revenge and made Smith's death look like an accident.
After Smith died, King's lawyer and two others bought his minivan for $1,500 to prevent it from being auctioned off on eBay. King smashed up the minivan with a baseball bat, then had it crushed in a junkyard.
In 2002, frustrated by his injuries, which made sitting for long periods of time uncomfortable, King announced that he was retiring from writing. His retirement would prove to be short-lived, as he continued to recover. Though he no longer writes at the same pace that made him so prolific in the past, he still produces great novels. In 2009, he published Under The Dome, a 1,088 page horror epic - his longest novel since the 1,142 page It was published in 1986. King's 1978 classic, The Stand, originally published in an edited 823-page format, would be republished in 1990 in its original uncut version at 1,168 pages. His latest book, Full Dark, No Stars, which will be released in November of 2010, is a collection of four novellas that are linked by a common theme - retribution.
While literary critics haven't always been kind to Stephen King, he has proven himself as one of our greatest modern novelists, and he remains a huge and powerful influence for aspiring writers everywhere.
Quote Of The Day "People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy... and I keep it in a jar on my desk." - Stephen King
Vanguard Video Today's video features a rare Stephen King TV interview from 2001. In this appearance on CBS' The Early Show to promote his novel Dreamcatcher, King discusses the horrific car accident that almost ended his life. Enjoy!
Thanks to Ruth D~, Gary, and others for their special efforts to fix the trouble it caused last year.
My tweet story, "Birds Flush," is now up at Textofiction.
Peter Bernhardt
My novel, The Stasi File, is now available on Kindle.
I've been invited to give a speech on German-American Day to the German American Society of Tulsa (GAST). The occasion will give me the opportunity to promote my book, since that's a perfect readership for it.
In addition, the general manager of the Arizona Opera has enthusiastically agreed to offer The Stasi File: Opera and Espionage - A Deadly Combination for sale at the opera gift shop, and also has invited me to do an author's signing during the performance of Carmen in November, which is the opera featured prominently in my novel.
Amanda Borenstadt
My short story, "Just a Shell Game," is up at Joyful!
Jan Bridgeford-Smith
My story, "Makeover," will be published by Apollo's Lyre toward the end of October. It was a great experience to work with Jim Harrington, Apollo's editor.
Thanks to the Practice list folks for their insightful comments and ideas on this piece.
As ever, thanks to everyone on the Practice list for your critiques, comments, encouragement and suggestions.
Mark Budman
BLIP magazine (published by the former editorial staff of Mississippi Review) has accepted my flash fiction story "Courage Under Fire."
In their article "Fiction in a Flash!" Psychology Today listed my website, Vestal Review, as a recommended website specializing in flash fiction.
Florence Cardinal
My article "Old and New Insomnia Remedies - Part Two," is up at Health Central.
Loretta Carrico-Russell
My article, "Will Kristy Lunbery's attorney do her right?" has been published in the Mountain Echo newspaper.
This story is about a mother of three convicted of murdering her then husband Charlie Bateson. The Los Angeles Times ran an extensive piece about this case being used as an example of bad interrogation practices.
Pam Casto
Flash fiction got a nice recommendation at the Psychology Today (Magazine) web site. Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction was mentioned (I have an article in this collection) as was Flash Fiction Flash (my newsletter).
The article is by two well-known literary agents, Evan Marshall and Martha Jewett, on trends in book publishing, and the article discusses flash fiction at length.
Karna Converse
I'm excited about a new project I started over at Literary Mama. I'm writing a weekly prompt that (I hope) will encourage those who like to write about parenting/mothering/raising a family to write about it. In a typical month, I'll generate three "For Your Journal" prompts of my own plus one that will relate to the current month's essay chosen by the Literary Reflections department. I've posted two so far (and am aiming for Tuesday posts).
Sue Ellis
I'm in the latest, and perhaps last issue of Flashquake.
You can go to their main page and read about the hiatus and possible end of this good, paying market.
Thanks to all those at Fiction who helped me with this non-fiction story. It began life as "Blood." I changed the title to "The Fledgling" and revised a few other things, too, after great critiques.
I'm up in the September 16th issue of Cynic Magazine. Thanks to Fiction for their feedback on this one.
In the new release of The Internet Review of Books, I have a fiction review of The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay, a book I liked very much, and a brief review of The Dead Janitor's Club, which I didn't like. I poked around a little, and there are some great reviews there, as usual.
Sherry Gloag
My debut novel, The Brat, is now available at Amazon.
Ann Hite
My Black Mountain Story, "A Discarded Spell," is up at Poor MoJo's Almanac. This is one of my favorite Black Mountain Stories.
The Crocodile's Last Embrace: A Jade del Cameron Mystery by Suzanne Arruda
The Paramour's Daughter: A Maggie MacGowen Mystery by Wendy Hornsby
Frances Mackay
I"ve just received word that my poem 'Evolution?' is up on Nature Writing with a new quote about poetry's power.
My editor for The Flinder's Whisper has just notified me that readers are asking for a reprint of my article on "How to avoid spam." She plans to reprint in the New Year.
And, I've just been paid for a couple of my poetry books that the tourists buy.
Thanks to the Practice list, where this started as an exercise on a literal interpretation of a saying. I'm pleased to be accompanied in this issue by Wayne Scheer.
My short story, "C.S.A.," is up at Hennen's Observer. Thanks to the folks at Fiction who critted this a while ago.
Jacquelynn Rasmenia Massoud
The Shine Journal has published my flash piece, "Eye Patch" in their September issue. Thank you so much to everyone on the Practice list where this one started.
My flash piece, "Don't Bother" has been published in the September issue of Eclectic Flash.
This one originated on the Practice list. Thank you so much to everyone there who helped me out with it.
Catherine Robinson
Creative Loafing in Tampa announced the winners of its annual Best of the Bay Readers' Poll and I won Best Blogger and Best Contributor. I was runner-up for Best Local Columnist, Best Personality to Follow on Twitter (OILF) and Best Local Troublemaker.
Anita Saran
The book trailer for my first novel, Circe, is now up at YouTube. Thanks to the feedback I received from our old friend Mike Duron, I edited the chapter excerpts.
Also on YouTube is my story, "City of Victory," on BBC Radio 4 broadcast in 2004.
An excerpt of the Author Chat, to which I invited by chillibreeze.com as guest author, is available on their website.
Wayne Scheer
A flash, "Redemption," is up at Poor Mojo's Almanac(k). It's listed as a rant. Our own Roger Poppen has a wonderful fiction piece in the same issue.
Clever Magazine has accepted a humorous essay about my gardening obsession, "Gardener's Anonymous," for a future issue.
My 100 word flash, "Warning Signs," which originally began as a Practice piece, was one of this past month's winners of NeCon E-Books monthly flash contest. The winning stories will be included in a book at the end of the year. If you'd like to read my story and/or enter next month's contest, visit the NeCon Books website.
I have two stories up at Joyful!, "What the Moon Sees" and "Grandpa's Little Girl." I'm particularly happy to see "Little Girl" in print. I wrote it when my granddaughter, now ten, was six month's old. I recently found it, revised it with a new ending and subbed it to Practice for a critiquing. To read the stories you have to scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Daily Love has accepted two flashes begun in Practice, "The Butterfly" and "For the Love of a Woman." They're scheduled for October 15 and 16. They print a love story a day. Daily Love is associated with Weird Year, where a number of IWW writers have published. When you sub to one, they ask if you'd like your story to be considered for their other publications as well.
Jason Warden
My story "Scorned" won the DeadTimesOnline short story contest. It will be in print next month for their Halloween/Premier issue.
My latest novel, The Facepainter Murders, has just been published. It is available on the publisher's website at writewordsinc.com and on Amazon.com.
Ruth Zavitz
My short article "Wooden Apples" has just been published by print magazine Daytripping and a longer version is scheduled for the winter issue of Country Connection, also print.
This Day In Writing History On September 17th, 1935, the legendary American writer Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado. When he was eleven years old, his parents, who were dairy farmers, moved the family to Springfield, Oregon. Kesey attended Springfield High School, where he excelled in academics and became a champion wrestler.
In 1956, while attending the University of Oregon in Eugene, (where he also won wrestling championships) Ken Kesey married his high school sweetheart, Norma "Faye" Haxby, whom he had first met in seventh grade. She would bear him three children. A year after they married, Kesey received a degree in speech and communication from the University of Oregon's School of Journalism. In 1958, he was awarded a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship grant to enroll in the creative writing program at Stanford University, which he did.
During his time at Stanford, Kesey volunteered to participate in Project MKULTRA at the Menlo Park Veterans' Hopital. Funded by the CIA, the project was a study of the effects of psychoactive drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline on people. Kesey would later write many accounts of his experiences with psychoactive drugs, both during Project MKULTRA and in private experimentation. His role as a guinea pig for the government project and his interaction with the patients at the veterans' hospital would serve as the inspiration for his first novel, which brought him international fame.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, published in 1962, was narrated by a mental patient - a docile half-Indian giant known as "Chief" Bromden, who pretends to be a deaf-mute. Chief tells the story of Randle Patrick McMurphy, an amiable transferee from a prison work farm. Convicted on a battery charge, McMurphy feigns insanity in order to serve out the remainder of his sentence in a mental hospital. With no real medical authority in charge, the ward is run by "the Big Nurse," Nurse Ratched, a cruel tyrant who rules her patients with an iron fist - and three strong young orderlies.
McMurphy constantly antagonizes Nurse Ratched with his rebellious attitude and disruptive behavior, which includes running poker games, making comments about her figure, and inciting his fellow patients to exercise their rights by voting to watch the World Series on TV. McMurphy inspires Chief to open up to him and the big Indian reveals that he can hear and talk. The two men team up to challenge Nurse Ratched's authority and are later forced to endure electroshock therapy.
The horrific treatments do nothing to temper McMurphy's rebellious nature, as he smuggles in liquor and prostitutes for his fellow patients. After Nurse Ratched's mental cruelty provokes a young patient to commit suicide, McMurphy attacks her and tries to strangle her. He is sent to the Disturbed Ward. Nurse Ratched recovers from her injuries but loses her voice - her most effective weapon for keeping the patients in line. McMurphy is lobotomized and left in a vegetative state. Realizing that the sight of him will demoralize the patients, serving as an horrifying example of what happens when you challenge authority, Chief smothers McMurphy with a pillow so he can die with dignity, thus robbing Nurse Ratched of her victory. Then he escapes from the hospital and returns to his tribe's land.
Time Magazine would include One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest in its list of the 100 Best English Language Novels From 1925 To 2005. It was adapted as a Broadway play by Dale Wasserman in 1963 and as an acclaimed feature film in 1975 directed by Milos Forman and starring Jack Nicholson as Randle Patrick McMurphy, Will Sampson as Chief, and Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched. The movie swept the Oscars, winning Academy Awards for Best Actor, (Nicholson) Best Actress, (Fletcher) Best Director (Forman), Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Ken Kesey's second novel, Sometimes A Great Notion, published in 1964, has been compared to William Faulkner's novel, Absalom, Absalom! Set in the fictional Pacific Northwest logging town of Wakonda, Oregon, the novel tells the story of the Stampers, a family that owns and operates a logging company. After the invention and introduction of the chainsaw to the logging industry, the union loggers in Wakonda go on strike, demanding the same pay for shorter working hours due to a decreasing need for labor.
Since the Stamper family's logging company is non-union, they decide to keep working and supply the local mill with all the lumber that the union workers would have supplied, had they not gone out on strike. The novel explores the details and ramifications of this decision, no doubt the result of half-crazed old patriarch Henry Stamper's philosophy of "never give a inch," which has defined the Stamper family and its relationship with the town. While more rooted in realism than Kesey's first novel, Sometimes A Great Notion is also more experimental, with alternating first-person narratives. It is considered a masterpiece of Northwestern American literature. It was adapted as an acclaimed feature film in 1970, directed by Paul Newman, who also starred as Henry Stamper.
Following the publication of Sometimes A Great Notion in 1964, Kesey had to go to New York City for a promotional appearance. So, he planned a cross country road trip with some friends, including Beat Generation icons Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg, counterculture icon Wavy Gravy, and others. Calling themselves the Merry Pranksters, they drove to New York in an old school bus painted with psychedelic colors that they nicknamed Furthur.
When he returned to California, Kesey gave a series of famous psychedelic parties called Acid Tests. Held in venues decorated with fluorescent paint, the Acid Tests featured light shows, music, and plenty of LSD. The main house band for these events was a then little known jam band called The Grateful Dead. Tom Wolfe would write about the Acid Tests in his 1968 book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, so named because the LSD would be dispensed in sugar cubes added to cups of Kool-Aid.
In 1965, after being arrested for possession of marijuana, Ken Kesey faked his own death to trick police, then fled to Mexico. When he came back to the United States eight months later, he was caught and sentenced to five months at the San Mateo County Jail. After serving his time, Kesey moved back to his family farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, where he stayed for the rest of his life and continued to write. He published three more novels, Caverns (1989), Sailor Song (1992), and Last Go Round (1994). He also published a short story collection, Demon Box (1986), and two collections of essays.
Ken Kesey's last major work was an essay published in Rolling Stone magazine, where he called for peace following the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. He died of complications from liver cancer surgery in November of 2001. He was 66 years old. He is rightfully considered one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Quote Of The Day "To hell with facts! We need stories!" - Ken Kesey
Vanguard Video Today's video features a TV segment on Ken Kesey that aired in 2001. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History On September 16th, 1919, the famous Canadian writer and educator Dr. Laurence J. Peter was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He later emigrated to the United States.
In 1941, at the age of 22, Laurence J. Peter began a career as a teacher. In 1963, he received a doctorate in education from Washington State University. The following year, he moved to California, where he became an Associate Professor of Education, the Director of the Evelyn Frieden Centre for Prescriptive Teaching, and later, Coordinator of Programs for Emotionally Disturbed Children at the University of California.
In 1968, four years after he'd arrived in California, Peter wrote and published a book that made him famous. The Peter Principle was a masterpiece of shrewd satire and social science, examining the flaws of hierarchical organizations such as corporations. The "Peter Principle" itself stated that "in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence ... in time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties ... work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence."
Peter provides examples of how employees who are not qualified to manage are promoted to middle management because of the skills they showed in performing their previous jobs - skills that usually don't qualify them to be managers. Thus, the middle manager has reached his highest level of competence, and further promotion simply raises him to incompetence. In addition to his principle, Peter also coined the term hierarchiology - the study of hierarchies and the principles of hierarchical systems in human society. He described it this way:
"Having formulated the Principle, I discovered that I had inadvertently founded a new science, hierarchiology, the study of hierarchies. The term hierarchy was originally used to describe the system of church government by priests graded into ranks. The contemporary meaning includes any organization whose members or employees are arranged in order of rank, grade or class. Hierarchiology, although a relatively recent discipline, appears to have great applicability to the fields of public and private administration."
Peter's book has proven to be even more influential these days than when it was originally published. It inspired the work of cartoonist Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, who titled one of his own books The Dilbert Principle. Peter would follow The Peter Principle with more works, including The Peter Pyramid or Will We Ever Get The Point?, Why Things Go Wrong, The Peter Plan, and The Peter Prescription.
In his final years, up until his death, Peter became involved with and helped to manage the Kinetic Sculpture Race in Humboldt County, California. The unique annual event is a race of sculptures that double as human powered, amphibious, all-terrain vehicles that can run on land or water. Called "the triathlon of the art world," the event is a three day cross country race where the sculpture vehicles must cross sand, mud, pavement, a bay, a river, and some steep hills. While Humboldt County hosts the World Championship race, other Kinetic Sculpture Races take place throughout the United States and around the world.
Laurence J. Peter died in 1990 from complications following a stroke. He was 70 years old.
Quote Of The Day "Television has changed the American child from an irresistible force into an immovable object." - Laurence J. Peter
Vanguard Video Today's video features a look at how the Peter Principle applies to stock traders. Enjoy!
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