tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31489363748255905232024-03-17T05:49:57.927+11:00Bentley RumbleBRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.comBlogger574125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-10657733433671119722024-03-14T00:00:00.017+11:002024-03-16T10:20:58.947+11:00Poet of the Month 089: EILEEN O'SHAUGHNESSY EILEEN O'SHAUGHNESSY [BLAIR], c 1936 END OF THE CENTURY, 1984 Death Synthetic winds have blown awayMaterial dust, but this one roomRebukes the constant violet rayAnd dustless sheds a dusty gloom.Wrecked on the outmoded pastLie North and Hillard, Virgil, Horace,Shakespeare's bones are quiet at last,Dead as Yeats or William Morris.Have not BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-41152713195008489292024-03-07T00:00:00.018+11:002024-03-07T00:00:00.135+11:00The Write Advice 193: CAN XUE The particular characteristics of my stories have now been acknowledged. Nevertheless, when someone asks me directly, 'What is really going on in your stories? How do you write them?' I'm profoundly afraid of being misunderstood, so all I can say is, 'I don't know.' From any earthly perspective, in truth I do not know. When I write, I intentionally erase any BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-14350724516885592942024-02-23T00:00:00.001+11:002024-02-23T00:00:00.247+11:00Think About It 094: AMANDA MARCOTTE For years, there's been an urge in the mainstream media to treat various right-wing ideologies as separate and distinct buckets of thought: the anti-abortion people. Or the racists. Or the anti-LGBTQ people. Or the 'men's rights' people. Or the people who want the Bible taught in biology classrooms. But in truth, these groups have always been intertwined and BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-81441947945659699012024-02-16T00:00:00.013+11:002024-02-16T00:00:00.133+11:00The Write Advice: CARTOON 022 © 1952 Writer's Digest Caption:'If you must be a writer's writer, you can at least write for the ones who can afford to buy books.' You might also enjoy: The Write Advice: CARTOON 020 The Write Advice: CARTOON 012 The Write Advice: CARTOON 002 BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-70473467643976844952024-02-09T00:00:00.099+11:002024-02-09T00:00:00.142+11:00Poet of the Month 088: OSIP MANDELSTAM OSIP MANDELSTAM, c 1921 CONCERT AT THE RAILWAY STATION Can't breathe. And the firmament seething with worms,and not one star speaking.But as God's our witness, there's music above us—The Aeonian maids, at whose song the station trembles,and again the violin-laden air is sunderedand fused together by the whistles of trains. Immense park. The station a BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-62146792663283930512024-02-02T00:00:00.003+11:002024-02-02T00:00:00.128+11:00The Write Advice 192: EVELYN WAUGH
What I think is true is there are only a very limited number of characters in the world, certainly only a very limited number that one man can cope with. And even [in the work of] the greatest novelists you'll find the same characters turning up again with different names, just as there are very few faces in the world, very few stories in the world… The great thing is never kill yourBRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-40919369026594690782024-01-25T01:00:00.001+11:002024-01-25T01:00:00.134+11:00Think About It 093: HENRY ROLLINS
It is no surprise to me that hardly anyone tells the truth about how they feel. The smart ones keep themselves to themselves for good reason. Why would you want to tell anyone anything that's dear to you? Even when you like them and want nothing more than to be closer than close to them? It's so painful to be next to someone you feel strongly about and know you BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-29657483393470128362024-01-18T01:00:00.111+11:002024-01-18T01:00:00.272+11:00Every Secret Thing (2009) by MARIE MUNKARA
University of Queensland Press, 2009 Although the kids displayed a frighteningly high level of deafness in the confines of the classroom, it was remarkable how acute their hearing became when they went outside. Sister had always believed this strange phenomenon pointed to the fact that the tympanic membranes in the bush mob's ears were tuned to another frequency. WhyBRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-74887445808243571742024-01-11T01:00:00.005+11:002024-01-18T09:05:25.363+11:00Poet of the Month 087: ANNA AKHMATOVA
ANNA AKHMATOVA, c 1922 LEGEND ON AN UNFINISHED PORTRAIT There's nothing to be sad about.Sadness is a crime, a prison.A strange impression, I have risenFrom the grey canvas like a sheet. Up-flying arms, with a bad break,Tormented smile — I and the sitterHad to become thus through the bitterHours of profligate give and take. He willed it that BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-66152734253956379122024-01-04T00:00:00.001+11:002024-01-04T00:00:00.131+11:00The Write Advice 191: ANNA FUNDER Having now become both a writer and wife, I find myself envying the titanic male writers, those unthinking 'mid-century misogynists' (insert almost any big name here). I don't envy them for any personal reason or anything much to do with their work/travel/gun-toting/sexual antics, etc — or maybe I do. What I most envy are their conditions of production. So many of BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-74926610475482338502023-12-27T01:00:00.001+11:002023-12-27T01:00:00.445+11:00Think About It 092: ERIC S JANNAZZO If sensitivity is the capacity to feel deeply, fragility on the other hand is the phenomenon of needing to feel certain things and not others… It’s an inability to recover from the experience of deep emotion, to regain a center, to maintain one’s capacity to function with maturity even in the presence of something very painful. This can be an enormous problem; without the BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-81744590999555792192023-12-20T01:00:00.000+11:002023-12-20T01:00:00.127+11:00The Write Advice: CARTOON 021
© Coverly You might also enjoy: The Write Advice: CARTOON 011 The Write Advice: CARTOON 006 The Write Advice: CARTOON 003 BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-30954300859073451642023-12-12T01:00:00.002+11:002023-12-13T07:40:37.755+11:00Some Books About… FRANK SINATRA FRANCIS ALBERT SINATRA 12 December 1915 – 14 May 1998 While he did not serve as a catalyst for major cultural shifts in the same way that his predecessors Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby or his successors Elvis Presley and The Beatles did, there's no denying that Frank Sinatra was and remains, more than two decades after his death, an important cultural figure whose musical influenceBRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-16328340517507985742023-12-06T00:00:00.000+11:002023-12-06T00:00:00.235+11:00The Write Advice 190: ANTHONY BURGESS
I find it hard to evaluate the new books I read and, as I get older, I find even the act of reading difficult. This is because a fair-sized area of my brain is concerned with working out new novels, and other people's imaginative writings get in the way of this… Whether novelists are really qualified to judge other people's books is hard to say. It was Cyril Connolly who… said BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-46022203028938404032023-11-24T01:00:00.162+11:002023-12-14T15:26:17.450+11:00Indian Summer (1883, published 1886) by WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
New York Review Books, 2005
'Yes,' answered Colville. 'Perhaps I've presented that point too prominently. What I wished you to understand was that I don't care for myself; that I consider only the happiness of this young girl that's somehow — I hardly know how — been put in my keeping… Sometimes I think that the kindest — the least cruel — thing I could do would be to BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-36787192849257183922023-11-17T01:00:00.003+11:002023-11-17T01:00:00.138+11:00The Write Advice 189: LESLEY CONGER
If I am at all an expert on planning, painful experience rather than astounding success has brought it about. I am learning, however, and I think I can share with you what I have learned, which is basically this: Begin by understanding the purpose of planning. The purpose of planning is not to hem you in, not to make you toe the line and meet schedules, BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-18179063547215238822023-11-10T01:00:00.001+11:002023-12-15T14:40:18.250+11:00Poet of the Month 086: TONY BIRCH TONY BIRCH BLACK OPHELIA deny the crossthe holy worddeny the gun the wire and hoecaste and colourtheft of ground of bodies go and be and bewith the drifting riverwith the spirit water go to the waterthe waterthe water go Black Opheliashimmering withina sheet of glass whispered lips to beating heartshe sounds — alwaysBRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-3878909823742913012023-11-03T01:00:00.001+11:002023-11-03T01:00:00.149+11:00The Write Advice 188: JUDY BLUME
For me, writing has its ups and downs. After I had written more than ten books I thought seriously about quitting. I felt I couldn’t take the loneliness anymore. I thought I would rather be anything than a writer. But I’ve finally come to appreciate the freedom of writing. I accept the fact that it’s hard and solitary work. And I worry about running out BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-86933287372512249442023-10-26T01:00:00.000+11:002023-10-26T01:00:00.157+11:00Think About It 091: REBECCA SOLNIT
Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourselfBRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-90718299503617683882023-10-19T01:00:00.000+11:002023-10-19T01:00:00.138+11:00The Write Advice 187: BRIAN MOORE
Yes, I go with the wave in writing too in the sense that when I start a book I don’t know if the book will succeed, I don’t know if I will abandon it, I don’t know how it is going to end, and it may end in a way which doesn’t satisfy me. For all of these reasons, the kind of books I write don’t become bestsellers. They have never really been bestsellers, although they have had BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-28797175187026429282023-10-12T08:58:00.000+11:002023-10-12T08:58:55.172+11:00La Chanson est la vie 004: CHARLES AZNAVOUR CHARLES AZNAVOUR22 May 1924 – 1 October 2018 COMME ILS DISENTCHARLES AZNAVOURfrom the 1972 Barclay LP Idiote je t'aime COMME ILS DISENT[AS THEY SAY] I live only with motherIn a very old apartmentOn Rue SarasateTo keep me companyI have a tortoise, two canariesAnd a cat To allow mother to restI often do the shoppingAnd theBRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-46022318238160724012023-10-05T00:00:00.001+11:002023-10-05T00:00:00.148+11:00The Write Advice 186: CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
Can we write about other people’s stories? There are these recurring waves of controversies in the past couple of years about what it means to put somebody into a book, or to adapt a real-life event or person into fiction — which, to be clear, is how we’ve written fiction for literally all of human history. It’s not just readers, but I’ve seen writers say this too, that it BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-40983414334455299422023-09-28T00:00:00.007+10:002023-09-28T00:00:00.136+10:00Think About It 090: SALLY YATES
We can debate policies and issues, and we should. But those debates must be based on common facts rather than raw appeals to emotion and fear through polarizing rhetoric and fabrications. Not only is there such a thing as objective truth, failing to tell the truth matters. We can't control whether our public servants lie to us. But we can BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-20057917971281422462023-09-21T00:00:00.039+10:002023-12-15T14:39:43.373+11:00Poet of the Month 085: KAY BOYLE
KAY BOYLE19 February 1902 – 27 December 1992 PORTRAIT Richard is a gold beach.Feet of waves run printless across him. His eyelids are smooth shellsCurved beneath his forehead. His eyes,The sharp elbows of his mindThrough his threadbare face. Rain swirls about legs,An unruly skirt.He walks with the rain on his shouldersLike a loose mantle. &BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3148936374825590523.post-4257897840711009462023-09-14T10:04:00.002+10:002023-09-27T11:01:19.274+10:00The Scapegoat of Sin City REMEMBERING ROSCOE 'FATTY' ARBUCKLE
ROSCOE 'FATTY' ARBUCKLE 24 March 1887 – 29 June 1933 Hollywood has always been a fertile breeding ground for scandal. This was as true at the birth of the motion picture industry in the first decade of the twentieth century as it is today where scandal has become a cunningly exploited marketing tool thanks to social media and the public's envy-driven need to BRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16497143340673991603noreply@blogger.com0