“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you” (Isaiah 43:2).
Suffering is never for nothing.
Author and teacher Elisabeth Elliot, 88, died yesterday in her sleep. Her legacy will never die.
June 13 will mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of William Bulter Yeats.
“a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy”
The Irish Times has several articles and personal reflections to commemorate the day. They say he published with them, being “a prolific journalist, contributing to dozens of newspapers, magazines and periodicals on matters of both politics and poetry, although for the budding writer the two were indivisible. The young idealist may have had loftier aspirations than the industry he later decried as ‘jeering, tittering, emptiness,’ but it was a good and important beginning for him: a way to augment his meagre living and increase his profile for his poetry.”
“And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t’other there
And wonder if she stood so at that age—
For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddler’s heritage—”
Two writers talk about story on The Eric Metaxas Show. “The point of living is to become fully alive.” Storytelling is part of that life.
Dominic Sandbrook talks about the virtues of author Catherine Cookson, who published 104 works before her death in 1998. “She is not cool or trendy. Cookson was sneered at a lot in her lifetime because her readers were the antithesis of the readers usually celebrated by literary critics: predominantly middle-aged and elderly women, often working class. Her books are conservative.”
Sandbrook has produced a biopic for BBC2 on Cookson. (via Prufrock)
The Bible Exchange labels J. Mark Bertrand “the most interesting man in the (Bible) world” as a way to soften him up before peppering him with questions. What’s his favorite Bible? The ESV Reader’s Bible
“Every so often people will ask me, ‘Why don’t you design your own Bible?’ I’d really like to. I’ve gone so far as to create the proposal to see whether any publishers are interested in the project. Meanwhile I am staying away from boats and airplanes for fear of being prematurely stranded.”
As the gods would have it, someone is talking about the fictitious author Neal Stephenson over on The Millions.
In the 1990s, Stephenson looked like the best thing to happen to science fiction since William Gibson blew things open with Neuromancer the previous decade. Snow Crash (1992) and The Diamond Age (1995) tangled with big ideas like the onset of the Web and nanotechnology years before they entered the popular nomenclature and knocked them into dramatic shape with humor and pop-culture savvy. Here’s the famous opening of Snow Crash, establishing the character of one Hiro Protagonist, a master of samurai sword usage, hacking, and near-future high-speed pizza delivery.
Apparently, his novel Seveneves
John Scalzi, author of Redshirts, which is being adapted for television, has scored a ten-year deal with Tor Books for thirteen new books.
The executive editor at Tor said that while Scalzi hasn’t had a top-of-the-list bestselling book, “One of the reactions of people reading a John Scalzi novel is that people go out and buy all the other Scalzi novels.”
Mark Griffiths, a historian and botanist, was writing a book about English horticulturist John Gerard, who was a contemporary of Shakespeare, and decided to work out the ciphers and symbols on a famous book of Gerard’s. His study has convinced him that he has found the only known portrait of Shakespeare made during his lifetime. Many clues point in this direction. For example:
A figure four and an arrow head with an E stuck to it. In Elizabethan times, people would have used the Latin word “quater” as a slang term for a four in dice and cards. Put an e on the end and it becomes quatere, which is the infinitive of the Latin verb quatior, meaning shake. Look closely and the four can be seen as a spear.
“It is a very beautiful example of the kind of device that Elizabethans, particularly courtiers, had great fun creating,” said Griffiths.
The discovery was published in Country Life, which apparently is enough to make scholars mock its veracity.
First up, Michael Dobson, director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham.
“I’m deeply unconvinced,” he said. “I haven’t seen the detailed arguments, but Country Life is certainly not the first publication to make this sort of claim.” (via Prufrock)
Artist Hugh MacLeod asked author Seth Godin several questions last month. Here’s one of them.
HM: Back in my advertising days, a “Freelancer” was mostly considered a second class citizen- somebody who didn’t have the chops to hold down a proper, full-time salaried gig with an equally proper, established agency. A mere hired gun, maybe useful in an emergency, but no real lasting value. And here’s you, saying “No” to all that. Here’s you saying, “The reason you’re a freelancer is because it actually allows you to do important work.” Please elaborate.
SG: Think about the people who are truly great. The programmer who can save you months. The cartoonist who draws life-changing images on the backs of business cards. The guitar player who can sit in on a recording session and change everything… These people are first class. They’re in charge. Top of their game. The best of the best. That’s the freelancer each of us is capable of being.
Photo by Ben Cremin/Flickr (CC 2.0)
A new opportunity to study with experts and professionals launched this week. Masterclass.com is a video-based instructional site that will allow you to study with professionals like James Patterson, Dustin Hoffman, and Serena Williams at your own pace on any device you own.
Patterson’s class on writing comes with notes, assigned reading, interactive exercises, and the outline of his bestselling novels from 2007, Honeymoon. For $90, you get twenty-two lessons and access to the class and course materials for as long as the website exists.
As I said, the site is new this week, so there are only three courses available now with two more announced. If you take a Master Class now or in the future, I’d love to hear about your experience.