NEA Chairman Dana Gioia announces the Longfellow Commemorative Stamp, the 23rd such stamp from the USPS. “Longfellow is not only a great poet, he also did as much as any author or politician of his time to shape the way 19th-century Americans saw themselves, their nation and their past,” said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia.
Category Archives: Authors
The Thomas Hardy Twins
Ella exposes the old literary plot to hide the fact that the author know as Thomas Hardy was in fact two men, Tragic and Cherry. She needs to write a novel about this evil hidden truth. I’m sure Raphael worked codes into his paintings to ensure those in the know could remember the truth.
Piper on Luther
Yesterday, I heard a challenging message on lessons from Martin Luther’s life by John Piper. Perhaps you’ll want to take some time for it this weekend.
Luther said, “Let the man who would hear God speak, read Holy Scripture.” Amen.
Is a Novelist One Who Has Written a Novel?
That’s a good question. Dan is asking what defines a novelist in light of Granta’s “Best Young American Novelists that includes 21 authors, including 7 that have not published a single novel between them.”
The Greatest In Great Britain
Frank Wilson says A.S. Byatt is the greatest living British author. As you may know by now, I don’t have the experience to argue this point. (What did they teach me in that school I attended?)
Molly Ivins, 1944-2007
Molly Ivins has gone where no mortal returns at age 62. E.J. Dionne Jr. recalls what she said about cancer, that it “can kill you, but it doesn’t make you a better person.”
(by way of Reasoned Audacity)
Andrew Klavan in World Magazine
Your Writers Group points out an interview with one of Lars’ favorite authors, Andrew Klavan, in World Magazine (subscription req.).
He quotes Klavan saying, “I’m a novelist, remember, not a preacher. I trust reality to express Christ’s presence, because I think that’s what it actually does.”
In introducing the interview, Marvin Olasky writes, “It shouldn’t be an unusual combination, because an understanding of man’s sinfulness, along with a glimpse of God’s holiness, often makes us realize our desperate need for Christ. And yet Christian fiction has a reputation for being too nice to take on vice.”
Clive Cussler Sues Over Sahara Movie
Adventure Author Clive Cussler is arguing in court that the script to “Sahara,” based on his novel, was so bad it has hurt his career. His lawyers claim that Crusader Entertainment altered the screenplay without his consent, essentially ruining his main character and the story. Crusader Entertainment is countersuing, claiming Cussler exaggerated his sales to win the film contract.
I can understand suing over alterations without consent, if that’s a contractual agreement, but making a lousy movie based on my book? That’s Hollywood–get over it. And Crusader’s claim may have merit, but on the surface, it looks like whining to me.
Mr. Dawntreader with G.K. Chesterton
Dawntreader is taking notes on Chesterton’s thoughtful essays in Orthodoxy:
“Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism.”
In short, thinking is meaningless if it’s all just chemical processes given to us by random survival instincts.
On C. S. Lewis: Hooper vindicated?
The serious cold has returned to God’s Country. The high today was a notch over 10°F. I’ve seen worse cold. Far worse. But this is definitely, inarguably frigid.
On Saturday it’ll be even colder. And the Viking Age Society is scheduled to help with a city cross-country skiing event that day, manning bonfires and passing out (warm) refreshments.
I’m trying to figure out a way to weasel out of it.
There’s news on the C. S. Lewis front. I wrote, over on the old blog site, about the late Lewis scholar Kathryn Lindskoog’s accusations, repeated and embellished through several books, that Lewis’ secretary and literary executor, Walter Hooper, had forged documents, notably the unfinished novel The Dark Tower, and fraudulently published them as Lewis’ work.
I never put much stock in those charges, and it appears my instincts were right. The current issue of Christianity Today features an article called “Shedding Light On the Dark Tower” (not online, but here’s a discussion thread from the Into the Wardrobe site); by Harry Lee Poe. Poe describes a 2003 article in the Yale Review by scholar Alastair Fowler, a student of Lewis’. Fowler clearly recalls Lewis showing him some of his unfinished work, and he says he particularly remembers seeing The Dark Tower, with its disturbing scene about the man with the “stinger” in his head.
It would appear that Lindskoog was motivated to make her charges, in part, by the fact that the Dark Tower fragment just isn’t very good. She couldn’t accept that her hero might have produced something so inferior.
If that’s so, it’s evidence that she didn’t understand the creative process very well. Rare is the fiction writer who can produce saleable material on the first draft, and most who can aren’t the best in their genres. I often tell people, “The first thing is just to get your story down on paper. Don’t worry about the fact that it’s dreck. It’s supposed to be dreck. That’s what first drafts are for. Once the dreck is down in black and white, you can put your artistic mind to work, cutting, shaping, polishing and rearranging stuff.”
You can argue that a poor first draft by Lewis should never have been published at all (good luck with that!). But to complain that an early draft is substandard compared with his published work—that’s just starry-eyed.