Author, ๐ป๐๐ ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ด๐๐๐๐๐. Winner, North American Book Award for Literary Fiction; Southern California Book Festival Book of the Year, etc. Editor for my publisher and presenter at the International Dublin Writers Festival www.gregfields.net
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Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). Inspired by Darwin he wrote ๐ป๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐จ๐๐๐. The first Tarzan movie in 1918 grossed more than $1 million and Tarzan become an icon for mass-market merchandise - Tarzan bathing suits, Tarzan ice cream, even Tarzan bread. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
I've found that, after the initial burst of a release, there's a quiet period that then builds slowly through word-of-mouth, reviews, and all the other stuff that writers and their publishers do, like book fairs, conferences, etc. But it's frustrating when you see your work just lying there.
We're out here, writing away in this very challenging genre.
Novelist William Saroyan (1908-81) ๐ป๐๐ ๐ฏ๐๐๐๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐ ๐ et. al. The writer is a spiritual anarchist. He is discontented with everything and everybody...The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops. The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Mary Shelley (1797-1851) She wrote ๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ on a dare, and the book gained recognition. Still, the Shelleys struggled with debt and a bad reputation. Mary always maintained her authorship of the book, despite rumors that it was really written by her husband. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
John Locke (1632-1704) In ๐ป๐๐ ๐ป๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ฎ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ he wrote that he believed in Natural Law, and that people have Natural Rights. He also wrote that the role of government was to protect those rights and he championed revolt against tyranny. Still relevant. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Irish novelist and short story writer Liam O'Flaherty (1896-1984)-๐ป๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐; ๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐ et al. The Committee on Evil Literature banned many of his works as detrimental to the Irish spirit. As a result many of his works weren't published in Ireland until the 1970s #bookssky #writingcommunity #authors
Novelist Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) - ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐๐ and ๐จ๐ ๐จ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ป๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ The original printing of ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐๐ in 1900, deemed 'scandalous', sold only 456 copies. It took a reissue in 1907, influenced by Dreier's wealthy brother, for the book to hit. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Zimbabwe-born Novelist Paula Hawkins, born 1972 ๐ป๐๐ ๐ฎ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ป๐๐๐๐, et. al. "Iโm not naturally an extrovert. Iโm a writer โ I sit in a room by myself making things up. That is where Iโm happiest. The thought of going back to work in an office is horrendous." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Frederick Forsyth (1938-2025) ๐ซ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ฑ๐๐๐๐๐ et. al. "I'm not a compulsive writer, never was. I don't need the bread any more. Let's see - compulsion, money -those are the only two reasons to go through the hell of trying to fill 500 blank sheets of paper." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) whose works helped develop philosophical literature and magical realism. "A writer must think that whatever happens to him is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) Master of cautionary science fiction -๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ 451, et. al. "You donโt have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." "Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
It never stops. I'll remember one mediocre review and forget a dozen good ones, then lose sleep over it. (I may be a bit neurotic).
Robert Stone (1937-2015) ๐ซ๐๐ ๐บ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐, National Book Award winner "Nobody really cares whether you do it or not. You have to make yourself do it If you do something youโre really pleased with, youโre in the crazy position of being exhilarated all by yourself." #booksky #writingccommunity #authors
H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) Although his novels and short stories are currently celebrated among fans of horror and โweird fiction,โ he never experienced commercial success or recognition during his lifetime. He died penniless and malnourished at the age of 46. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Vladimir Nabokovโs ๐ณ๐๐๐๐๐ was published in the US in 1958.. He worked on the book for "five years of monstrous misgivings and diabolical labors." At one point he was about to toss his manuscript into an incinerator behind his house when his wife stopped him. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Critics sometimes think they need always to be critical.
George Orwell's ๐จ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ญ๐๐๐ is published in 1946. Orwell, a socialist and critic of Stalin, wrote it to satirize events leading up to the Russian Revolution and then the Stalinist era. Contemporary reviews were not universally positive, one calling it 'dull.' #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Poet Charles Bukowski (1920-94). When he was a teenager he concluded that he hated his abusive father and he hated the America Dream, deciding to be a writer. He used his writing to depict the โdepravity of urban life and the downtrodden in American societyโ. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) -๐น๐๐ ๐น๐๐; ๐ฐ๐๐๐๐๐๐ Father of the historical novel. At the time, people thought novels were trashy and any real writer who wrote one was considered a sellout. "I am a Scotsman, therefore I had to fight my way into the world." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Playwright Clifford Odets (1906-63) - ๐พ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐๐; ๐ป๐๐ ๐ฎ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ฉ๐๐ - passed away on this date. In 1952 he was summoned before the HUAC to name suspected Communists. Although he was never officially blacklisted, his career collapsed after his HUAC appearance. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
In 1946 H.G. Wells died in London at age 79. A master of futurist writing (๐ป๐๐ ๐ป๐๐๐ ๐ด๐๐๐๐๐๐; ๐พ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐พ๐๐๐๐ ๐; ๐ป๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ด๐๐), he was nominated for the Nobel four times, but never won. He stated that his epitaph should be "I told you so. You damned fools" #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Novelist Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) published ๐ถ๐ ๐ฏ๐๐๐๐ ๐ฉ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ on this date in 1915. "Nothing in the world is permanent, and weโre foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely weโre still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Alex Haley (1921-92) "Writing is a lonely, private, and poor-paying affair. For every writer kissed by fortune there are thousands more whose longing is never requited. Even those who succeed often know long periods of neglect and poverty. I did." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
In 1912 Virginia Stephen married Leonard Woolf. She was 30, he was 31. Together the couple founded the Hogarth Press in their dining room to publish Virginia Woolf's novels and later the work of writers who were then unknown, including T.S. Eliot and E.M. Forster. #booksky #writingommunity #authors
In 1854 Henry David Thoreau published, ๐พ๐๐๐ ๐๐, reflecting on the two years spent living near Walden Pond. Thoreau regularly went into Concord, two miles away, so he was hardly isolated. The first edition was 2,000 copies, and it took five years to sell them off. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896-1953) "To make the intangible tangible, to pick the emotion out of the air and make it true, is both the blessing and the curse of the writer, for the thing between book covers is never as beautiful as the thing he imagined." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Author and humorist Garrison Keillor, born 1942 "When the ๐ต๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ turned down work, they turned it down in such a gentlemanly way making apologies for their own shortsightedness. They had a way of rejecting my work that made me feel sorry for them somehow." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Totally agree. He had an immense ego and indulged every favor thrown his way as if it were owed him.
I save everything. You never know when something that was underwhelming might trigger a new thought or two. And often there's phrasing, or even a single word, that can help a WIP.
Alfred Tennyson (1809-92) He wrote only poetry - no novels or essays. At his height he was the most famous man in England. He was offered a lordship in honor of his work, the first time any Englishman had ever been given a title for literary achievement. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Guy de Maupassant (1850-93), master of the modern short story (e.g., "The Necklace") There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how you misunderstand it! You treat it as something solemn like a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Thank you for this.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) "A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely; he must put himself in the place of another and many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
English poet Rupert Brooke (1817-1915) Smart, athletic and extremely attractive, Yeats called him "the handsomest young man in England." As a British soldier, he died on a French hospital ship from blood poisoning he got from an infected mosquito bite on his lip. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Novelist James Baldwin (1914-87) "I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain." "People pay for what they do...very simply; by the lives they lead." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
The International Dublin Writers Festival is an intimate gathering of writers, editors, publishers and readers. There's an emphasis on meeting others, networking and bringing your work forward. If you've got some time in mid-September, it's worth considering. internationaldublinwritersfestival.com
He died broke and unknown. In that regard, he's no different from most writers. A truly brilliant and original writer.....
Herman Melville (1819-91) He filled ๐ด๐๐๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐ with symbolism, philosophy and Shakespearean rhetoric. The public didn't get it and it only sold about 3,000 copies while Melville was alive. When he died the New York Times referred to him as 'Henry Melville'. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
The writer's trance...When it happens, nothing else can penetrate.
Primo Levi (1919-87), Italian Jewish chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor. "Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
My Google Machine showed me this when I asked for an image of Emily, but I've always had a hard time distinguishing the Bronte sister.
Emily Bronte (1818-48) She only published one novel - ๐พ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฏ๐๐๐๐๐๐. Critics didn't like it much, finding it too dark. Her health suffered after it was published. She caught a cold at her brother's funeral later that year and died three months later. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
J. R. R. Tolkien published his first volume of ๐ป๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐น๐๐๐๐ series, ๐ป๐๐ ๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐น๐๐๐, in 1954. The book was met with mostly favorable reviews. ๐ป๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐น๐๐๐๐ series has been compared to ๐ท๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐ for its cultural significance. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
After the rush comes the calm, and that's hard to reconcile. But then there's the steady build as the work gains traction, and that's a new excitement in itself. And always there's the pride of having done it. Congratulations, and on to the next one.
On this date in 1814 Percy Bysshe Shelley abandoned his wife and ran off with Mary Godwin, who would go on to write ๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ but was only 16 at the time. The couple caused quite the scandal until they were legally married after Shelleyโs wife drowned herself. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) writer of hard-boiled detective fiction. "Any man who can write a page of living prose adds something to our life, and..is surely the last to resent someone who can do it even better. An artist cannot deny art, nor would he want to." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Novelist/poet Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943), author of the epic poem ๐ฑ๐๐๐ ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐'๐ ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ which told the tale of the American Civil War. "Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Iโm not sure he spent much thought to keeping his mother happy, even though Mama Hemingway sounds pretty brutal.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) Many readers objected to the gritty language of his first novel, ๐ป๐๐ ๐บ๐๐ ๐จ๐๐๐ ๐น๐๐๐๐, including his own mother: "If I should pick up a book by any other writer with such words in it, I should read no more โ but pitch it in the fire." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Novelist and playwright Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023) - ๐จ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ท๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฏ๐๐๐๐๐; ๐ต๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ถ๐๐ ๐ด๐๐, et. al. "My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. Thatโs heaven. Thatโs gold and anything else is just a waste of time." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Frank McCourt, Irish-American writer (๐จ๐๐๐๐๐'๐ ๐จ๐๐๐๐) died this day in 2009. โThe master says itโs a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says itโs a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if thereโs anyone in the world who would like us to live.โ #booksky #writingcommunity #auhors
Journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005) ๐ญ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐ ๐ฝ๐๐๐๐ "Americaโฆ just a nation of used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) Author of the Perry Mason series. He loved boxing. After passing the bar exam, he was sworn in with two black eyes after a bout. "Dear Editor: Itโs a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
J.D. Salinger's ๐ป๐๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐น๐๐ was published on this date in 1951. Despite Salingerโs hesitations about publicity it became a best-seller almost immediately. At one time it was both the most banned book and the most frequently taught book in the country. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Iris Murdoch (1919-99). She wrote all of her novels in longhand, twice, then delivered the manuscripts to her publisher in a plastic bag. "Truth can be attained, if at all, only in silence. It is in silence that the human spirit touches the divine." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
There are book reviewers who will post reviews on their sites of submitted titles. Some have immense followings. Most have focused genres. Itโll take a bit of research to find the right ones, but itโs well worth the effort.
All of the above, including review sites, blogs and podcasts targeting the most likely readership, and participation at writers conferences, all of which have had some effect. But none of it is easy, and all of it requires constant attention, which is pretty maddening.
On this date George Gordon, Lord Byron returned to England after a two year trip through the Mediterranean. Shortly after his return he published ๐ช๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐ฏ๐๐๐๐๐ '๐ ๐ท๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, which brought him instant popularity. โI awoke one morning and found myself famous.โ #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Nadine Gordimer, South African writer/activist (1923-2014), died on this day. Gordimer advised Nelson Mandela in writing his most famous speeches. Her works ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐๐'๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ and ๐ฑ๐๐๐'๐ ๐ท๐๐๐๐๐ were banned, but she eventually won the Nobel Prize in 1991. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Not sure I have. But I try to create space for myself before I even sit down to write - soft music, a quick meditation, maybe a glass of wine. All that helps build a wall against the obligations and distractions.
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-73), born Neftali Basoalto. When he was 19 he sold all his possessions to publish his first book, changing his name because his father didn't approve. Neruda always wrote in green ink because he believed it was the color of hope. #booksky #writingommunity #authors
E.B. White (1899-1985) After a young pig he was raising got sick and he failed to save its life, he wrote one of his most famous essays, "Death of a Pig." Then he wrote a his classic children's novel, ๐ช๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐'๐ ๐พ๐๐, in which the pig doesn't have to die. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) ๐ฐ๐ ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐ ๐ป๐๐๐ (๐น๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ป๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ท๐๐๐). Seven volumes and almost 1.5 million words. I know of no one who's read the whole thing, although it led Virginia Woolf to exclaim, "Oh, if I could write like that." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) Considered the founder of the Gothic novel, she wrote ๐ป๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐๐๐๐๐, for which she was paid so well she became the highest paid author in the 1790s. After ๐ป๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐๐๐๐๐ she published nothing else and lived privately until her death. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
On this date in 1918 Ernest Hemingway was wounded in a battle in Italy. Hospitalized, he fell in love with his nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky, who would eventually leave him for another man. Hemingway based the character Catherine Barkley in ๐จ ๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐จ๐๐๐ on her. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Apparently he was found clutching his chest in his home office. He directed his dying words to his wife - โYou are wonderful.โ
Niall Williams - ๐ป๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐ . Brilliant, lyrical writing.
Robert Heinlein (1907-88) ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐ , et. al. With Clarke and Asimov, he defined 20th century science fiction. "I think that science fiction...has a distinct therapeutic value...Its primary postulate [is] that the world does change." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
In 1957 Paul McCartney and John Lennon met for the first time. Lennon, who was 17, had formed a band although he had trouble remembering lyrics and didn't know proper guitar chords. Paul, 15, could do both, and so Lennon asked him to join the band a week later. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Pat Conroy wrote all his novels in ink on 8"x14" legal pads. You're in good company.
Irish novelist Sebastian Barry, born 1955. "I do believe writing for a writer is as natural as birdsong to a robin [and] you can ferry back a lost heart and soul in the small boat of a novel or a play...True lives can nest in the actual syntax of language." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Today in 1931 James Joyce and Nora Barnacle were wed.They had lived together all over Europe for 26 years, had two children and were usually broke until Joyce published ๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐๐. To ensure that Nora and their children could inherit the royalties they finally wed. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
I'm obsessively, neurotically thorough. I could tell you what each one had for breakfast two weeks prior to their entrance into the narrative.
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Despite his dark writing, he found love late in life with Dora Diamant. Although he was suffering excruciating pain from tuberculosis, Diamant later said "Kafka was always cheerful. He liked to play; he was...always ready for some fun." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
I write my own ethnicity (Irish), with which I feel comfortable and convey with reasonable accuracy. But I tend to stay away from ethnic flavoring that I could easily, and offensively, misrepresent
It's a mixed experience for me. There are distractions that interrupt my fragile little mind, but every now and then someone will catch my attention and suggest a character, a scene or some phrasing that might not otherwise come forward. Plus, there's always good coffee.
Herman Hesse (1877-1962) In 1911 he took a trip to India and studied Eastern religions and ancient Hindu and Chinese cultures, inspiring his novel ๐บ๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ "Within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
William Strunk (1869-1946) As an English professor he published ๐ป๐๐ ๐ฌ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐บ๐๐๐๐. Revised by E.B. White, 'Strunk & White' is a standard of usage. "Instead of announcing what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so." "Vigorous writing is concise." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004). Polish poet, prose writer, and Nobel Prize Winner who defected to the West in 1951. ๐ป๐๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ด๐๐๐ is a classic of anti-Stalinism. "The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
I'm an editor for my publisher, so I get to read manuscripts from other writers going through the same creative struggles., and learn from their ideas. But I think we all write best when we observe, really observe, the people around us and what they do. Everyone has a story.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-44) An aviator, he sought to join French forces in World War II. Rejected because of his age and discouraged, he wrote ๐ป๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ท๐๐๐๐๐. In July 1944, flying in North Africa, his plane disappeared and he was never heard from again. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Jen-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), philosopher (๐ป๐๐ ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐๐๐๐) and novelist (๐ฌ๐๐๐๐ and ๐ป๐๐ ๐ต๐๐ ๐ฌ๐๐๐๐๐). Interred as a national hero in the Panthรฉon in Paris in 1794. "What wisdom can you find greater than kindness." "To live is not to breathe but to act." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Seems it's a lot easier to express our hate these days.
E.R. Braithwaite (1912-2016), Guyanan novelist and educator who wrote ๐ป๐ ๐บ๐๐ ๐พ๐๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐ A man who is strong and tough never needs to show it in his dress or the way he cuts his hair. Toughness is a quality of the mind; it has nothing whatever to do with muscles. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
On this day in 1947 the New Yorker published Shirley Jackson's short story, ๐ป๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐๐๐๐, a chilling story of tradition and conformity gone mad. Initial reaction was negative, as readers canceled subscription and Jackson herself received regular hate mail. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
George Orwell, born Eric Blair (1903-50). After a few years living in poverty, associating with hobos and prostitutes, he wrote ๐ซ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ถ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ท๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐ ๐๐. To shield his parents, he published it under the pseudonym George Orwell, which he used thereafter. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Brilliant.
American novelist, journalist and satirist Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914). From ๐ป๐๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐๐'๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ "History, n. an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Poet Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) ๐น๐๐๐๐๐๐ depicts her life under Stalinโs regime, her husband's death and her sonโs long imprisonment. "I am in the middle of it: chaos and poetry. Pain, disorder, occasional clarity; and at the bottom of it all: only love; poetry." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Jean-Paul Sartre, born 1905. Existentialist, Nobel winner. And prankster. While at university, he dropped water balloons from a roof onto dinner guests in tuxedos, shouting, "Thus pissed Zarathustra!" and occasionally showed up naked at official events. #booksky #writingcommunity #autthors
Irish poet Paul Muldoon, born 1951, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for ๐ด๐๐ ๐บ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ฎ๐๐๐๐๐. "I think one of the great things about being a writer is the extent to which it allows us to invent ourselves. Itโs like being in a witness-protection program." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Kindness. We've become collectively cold.
Salman Rushdie (1947) ๐ด๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐'๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ earned a Booker Prize and ๐ป๐๐ ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฝ๐๐๐๐๐ earned a fatwa calling for his death. A poetโs work is to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Chinua Achebeโs ๐ป๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ญ๐๐๐ ๐จ๐๐๐๐ published in 1958, the first widely read work of literature about Africans by an African. Works to that point had largely portrayed Africans as savages. Finding no authentic African novels to read, Achebe wrote his own. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
June 16 is Bloomsday, the annual celebration of that 1904 day featured in James Joyce's novel Ulysses ๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐๐. The first Bloomsday was celebrated in Dublin in 1924. Some celebrations include readings of the entire book (which is no celebration). #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
John Edgar Wideman. Both ๐ท๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ญ๐๐๐ and ๐บ๐๐๐ ๐ญ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ won the PEN/Faulkner Award. I donโt write books because I have answers. I write books because I have questions. What we are is the questions that we ask, not the answers that we provide. #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) whose voice sought to capture the Irish character with all its contradictions and aspirations. "People who lean on logic and...rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind." "In dreams begin responsibilities." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
The birthday of Anne Frank. In 1942, before going into hiding, her family gave her a birthday party. One of her gifts was the diary. โI can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.โ #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
Novelist William Styron (1925-2006) - ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐'๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐๐; ๐ป๐๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ต๐๐ ๐ป๐๐๐๐๐ "I get a fine warm feeling when Iโm doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Letโs face it, writing is hell." #booksky #writingcommunity #authors
