In an interview, Elizabeth Strout said that she once met an advisor in the Obama administration who said that he was there to help make choices. It turned out, however, that most often the best course of action was so obvious that that they really didn’t have to debate … Read More
Author: Kate Stover
“And then learn to be more compassionate company, as if you were somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage.”
When you are writing, do you think “This is great!” or do you think, “I shouldn’t have put this off. It’s a mess. I’ll never get it right.” Too often, I find it easy to be with the large number of people who are critical of themselves when they write. … Read More
“He was committing the beginner’s error of inserting his own agenda into the poem, instead of drawing elements out of the poem and then cautiously blowing on them until they started to flame.”
This sentence made me stop to wonder if Knausgaard was telling his readers they shouldn’t come to his novel with an agenda for what it should be like. If so, that’s a good start. I would go further, though, and say that this book is not for those who expect … Read More
“The island where I live is peopled with cranks like myself.”
The essay “Teaching a Stone to Talk” opens with a description of cranky man named Larry who does, in fact, try to teach a stone to talk. Several times a day, he takes a certain stone off his shelf, removes its cover, and gives it lessons. This light-hearted story leads … Read More
“To cause paralyzing anxiety, is the dream of power. . .”
Is this true? To have power, do you need to make everyone feel anxious? According to the author of this essay about Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the answer is “Absolutely.” The play is about an exiled Duke who wants to return to power, even though he has no army, … Read More
“I’m more interested in the intangibles that produce good writing – confidence, enjoyment, intention, integrity.”
In the 30th Anniversary Edition of this classic book on writing nonfiction, William Zinsser describes how his priorities have evolved over the decades. Known as an advocate for clear, “uncluttered” writing, in his later years, he grew to value “humanity and warmth” even more. As every writing teacher would … Read More
“A black dream weighs upon me like lead, / For my foreordained death is approaching, / and great wars and great fires lie ahead.”
The great Russian poet Alexander Block wrote these words in 1902, when he was 22 years old. It seemed as if he knew that in less than 20 years, he would die of heart failure brought on by malnutrition. He lived through Russian revolutions in 1905 and 1917; he … Read More
“Get your intention clear before you start and tell your story with integrity.”
“You don’t have to rely on reason.”
More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle said that logical arguments are always less effective than moving stories. So, if you want to persuade someone to do something, appeal to their heart, not to their brain. I thought of this when reading this book. Brewer argues that if you want to … Read More
“I said O let us not go.”
“It’s the kind of room that makes me hate the world.”
What an experiment — a novel with no plot, about a woman whose name we don’t know, set in an unidentified location. It’s a collection of descriptions of how the protagonist responds to her surroundings. NPR compared the book to “slow cooking” that requires patience. The New York Times… Read More
“But then Shakespeare had a thought: What if a character had a conversation – with himself.”
Before Shakespeare invented the soliloquy, actors spoke in monologues and dialogues. Soliloquys are a radical combination of the uninterrupted speech of one person (in monologues) with the tension created by expressing two different perspectives (in dialogues). Soliloquys demonstrate how a character can go back and forth when weighing both sides … Read More
“I began to think that some of us are the designated rememberers.”
I always begin my “How to Write Your Memoirs” classes by asking, “Why do you want to do this?” No one has ever answered the question like novelist Pat Conroy does in this collection of essays about writing memoirs. Conroy said that he was surprised that when he talked with … Read More
“She felt that surely she hadn’t done every single thing wrong.”
Of course, this character – Astrid – had not done every single thing wrong. But, after watching someone she had known for 40 years get hit by a bus (literally), she suddenly faced the fact that she had made plenty of mistakes and had done things she had regretted. So … Read More
“Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?”
What makes this book a bestseller? Clearly, the sad “if only I had…..” theme of the book resonates with many people during a year when mental health issues are skyrocketing. Perhaps more importantly, the novel is written by someone who has lived the experience he is writing about. The … Read More