GRANT SNIDER Styles of Writing (2014)

 Re-posted from the blog INCIDENTAL COMICS

© 2014 Grant Snider

People tend to think that inspiration, exploration, and elation are the majority of the creative process, that artists live in this magical land of ideas.  But most of creative work is getting something down, being dissatisfied with it, reworking it, reworking it again, throwing it out, starting over, and continuing until some deadline arrives.  Creative work, aside from those rare moments of pure inspiration, is real work.  Taking time each day to put in the work and be at your drawing table: that’s how it gets done.  If nothing happens, you still have to be there in the chair, otherwise absolutely nothing will get done.  Those moments are hidden from the public eye; no one sees the hours at the drawing table waiting for ideas to come or reworking things. They see the finished product.

GRANT SNIDER

Interviewed in The Los Angeles Review of Books

16 July 2017

 
Click HERE to visit INCIDENTAL COMICS, the wonderful blog of US cartoonist GRANT SNIDER.  You can also click HERE to read the full July 2017 GRANT SNIDER interview by JEFFREY KINDLEY on the website of The Los Angeles Review of Books and HERE to order a copy of his book The Shape of Ideas: An Illustrated Exploration of Creativity (published by Abrams ComicArts in April 2017). 

You might also enjoy: 
GRANT SNIDER All I Need To Write (2013)
GRANT SNIDER How To Make Write (2013)
GRANT SNIDER The Many Faces of the Novel (2014)

POET OF THE MONTH #41: Eduardo White

EDUARDO WHITE, c. 2004

 

THE BURDEN OF LIFE

The burden of life!
I loved bearing it, just like you,
hearing it grow inside me,
in living flesh.

I didn't only want
to open your wound,
I didn't only want
the patient vocation of a labourer:
I wanted the earth's vocation too,
which also is yours.

Treat love like a profession,
to be practised with great care.

Repeat to perfection
as often as necessary,
until it lasts
and everything inside
is in the right place.
 
Let the sun rise into the night.
Never let love become a leftover, a memory.

1990

Translated by STEFAN TOBLER

The Poet:  Eduardo Costley White was born in the Mozambique port city of Quelimane on 21 November 1963.

After training for three years at the Industrial Institute, he founded the poetry magazine Charrua in 1984 before going on to be named President of the Mozambican Writers Association.
 
His first collection of poetry Amar Sobre o Índico [To Love the Indian] was published in 1984.  He published ten other collections, the last being Até Amanhã, Coração [See You Tomorrow, Heart] which appeared in 2005. The poem O peso da vida [The Burden of Life] is from his third collection País de Mim [Country of Me, 1990].  In 2001 he was named Literary Figure of the Year by the Mozambican Press Association.

Preoccupied with his mixed Portuguese and English heritage, White's poetry was both a reflection of his personal history and an exploration of Mozambique's war-torn past characterized by the unceasing quest for human dignity.  Whether speaking of his beloved, of the land or of his relationship to his own work, his poems are notable for their tone of tenderness, musicality and occasional eroticism.  Now considered one of his country's finest poets, White died in Mozambique on 24 August 2014.


Click HERE to read more poems posted on the website of the Poetry Translation Centre.

You might also enjoy:
POET OF THE MONTH #34: Zaid Shlah
POET OF THE MONTH #17: Caasha Lul Mohamud Yusuf
POET OF THE MONTH #8: Mohammed Bennis

WRITERS ON WRITING #96: Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

I’m not interested so much in being included as I am in fucking shit up.  Representation, to me, implies subsumption. I don’t want to belong in this world.  I want to end it and make something new, something better.  That said, the ways in which certain folks are institutionally excluded from the literary world are glaring.  There is work out there that deserves to be heard that is instead being actively silenced while racists, transmisogynists, and other bigots are given platforms for their mediocre and harmful shit.

Interview conducted by ERIN TAYLOR [18 June 2016]


Click HERE to read the full interview with JOSHUA JENNIFER ESPINOZA conducted by ERIN TAYLOR on the Maudlin House website.

You might also enjoy:
POET OF THE MONTH #14: Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
WRITERS ON WRITING #81: Claire Vaye Watkins
WRITERS ON WRITING #25: Salwa Bakr

IT WAS THE NIGHTINGALE: THE UNRELIABLE STORY OF FORD MADOX FORD (2016)

A new feature-length documentary directed by PAUL LEWIS

Official Subterracon Films poster, 2017

I am enthusiastically supporting fundraising efforts for a new film by Paul Lewis about the English editor, poet and novelist extraordinaire FORD MADOX FORD and would love you to join me.  

Please donate what you can to this unique, long-overdue feature length documentary on one of the twentieth century's most important and fascinating writers to ensure it receives a major theatrical release in the US, the UK, Europe and hopefully Australia. 

Let's help Mr. Lewis launch It Was The Nightingale: The Unreliable Story of Ford Madox Ford in style!

To donate via PayPal or credit card or simply to find out more, visit the Subterracon website: 

http://www.subterracon.com/support-us.html

You can also visit the official site for the film to view a short clip from it:

http://www.subterracon.com/it-was-the-nightingale.html

You might also be interested to read the following blog posts to learn why the life and work of FORD MADOX FORD matters so much to me as a reader and a writer and why the importance of his many outstanding contributions to twentieth century English literature cannot be overestimated:

FORD MADOX FORD A Call: The Tale of Two Passions (1910) 
POET OF THE MONTH #4: Ford Madox Ford 
WRITERS ON WRITING #90: Ford Madox Ford

WRITERS ON WRITING #95: Barbara Kingsolver

I struggle with confidence, every time.  I’m never completely sure I can write another book.  Maybe my scope is too grand, my questions too hard, surely readers won’t want to follow me here.  A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it.  I falter and fidget and worry it won’t be good enough, and then the day comes when I give myself permission:  just write, I tell myself.  No one has to see it, you can throw everything away if it’s terrible, we’ll keep it a secret unless or until it becomes wonderful.  And then I get to work.

About Writing [from 'Frequently Asked Questions' section of BK website]

 
Click HERE to visit the website of US historical novelist and founder of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction BARBARA KINGSOLVER.

You might also enjoy:
WRITERS ON WRITING #75: Val McDermid 
WRITERS ON WRITING #52: Sarah Waters 
WRITERS ON WRITING #25: Salwa Bakr