Archive for the ‘Author Birthday Bash’ Category
Happy Birthday, Henry!
By Kenny Luck
On July 4, 1845, when Henry David Thoreau moved into his cabin on the shores of Walden Pond, he was probably unaware that his abode in the woods, and the impact and influence of that endeavor, would forever echo through time. Thoreau was an uncompromising idealist; an ardent maverick who criticized his fellow man. He urged that man and women ought to live more simply, and more deliberately. “The mass of men,” he famously wrote, “lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Yet the scope of Thoreau’s message is much wider than social criticism. He speaks of spiritual transcendence in Nature and the unbounded potential of the individual. Thoreau is a dreamer and he speaks to dreamers. In a word, shun dogmatism and demagoguery; see beyond the immediate conventional religious explanations to reap a higher understanding. In our comodified contemporary American society, with the rise of religious intolerance and fundamentalism, materialism and mass consumerism, Thoreau’s message is needed now more than ever.
Approaching Thoreau from a devotional, rather than an academic point of view, I began collecting short quotes from his works for my own purposes. Most of the quote collecting occurred in the winter months of 2006, when I was a third year undergraduate student. I spent countless hours in my university library between classes pouring over thousands of pages. I cherished each quote and in a short time was able to recite long passages from memory. Commenting on society, nature, government, spirituality and love, there seemed to be a Thoreau quote for every season. After roughly one month my list had expanded into a plethora of pages. Then, I got an idea: Why not share these treasures with others? And so it began.
Choosing which quotes to include and which quotes to ignore is tricky. With the aim of trying to preserve Thoreau’s original intentions, I was careful to not take any passage out of context. No precedent can dictate the proper course of action. However, Thoreau’s lyrical writing style makes it easy to find short, memorable truisms. Much of his best work lay not in the familiar, but in the unfamiliar. As dedicated diarist, he wrote incessantly nearly every day. I found that the wisdom contained in his journal entries rivaled the most complex systems of thought laid out by any philosopher before or since. His correspondences, particularly with Harrison Blake, are even more exceptional. As the two men swapped letters between one another, Thoreau always found new ways to transform even the most mundane subjects into brilliant pieces of insight.
Thumbing Through Thoreau, appropriate for the beginner or devotee, is my attempt to bring together the best pieces of Thoreau’s writings in one collection. It is the result of long hours of hard work by several people, and a determination constantly fueled by one inspiring idea: “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,” Thoreau wrote in the closing of Walden, “he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” In the end, we could all use a dose of Thoreau from time to time.
______________________
Kenny Luck is a graduate student at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in History/Political Science from the same institution. He writes for The Weekender – an arts and entertainment weekly – and The Independent. He is currently working on his second book. He enjoys recording music, book browsing, and travel.
ISBN: 978-0-9822565-4-1
Happy Birthday Joyce Carol Oates
Fodder for Fiction Weekly Author Birthday Bash
Happy Birthday to Joyce Carol Oates! I couldn’t resist sharing the following excerpt in honor of her special day. It may not feel very celebratory – and I hope Joyce Carol Oates feels happy on her birthday. However, there is something so moving about how loss can change our perception.
The river! Marina recalled how from Adam’s studio, at the rear of his house, you could stand staring across the river, those long mesmerized moments as light faded on the agitated waves, and dusk deepened at the edges of things; dusk, a quality of earth; while an eerie oily-glistening light remained on the water. In the west, the sun was chemical red and gorgeous, bleeding at the horizon like a burst egg yolk.
On both sides of the river fireworks erupted. Fourth of July: the American holiday celebrating gunfire, rockets, aggression, death to the enemy. Across the river on the east bank of the Hudson, in the vicinity of Tarrytown, gaudy pinwheels of crimson, gold, blinding-white light were rising, soaring and falling soundlessly into the river. And a moment later replaced by more explosions, gaudy glittering colors rising, sinking soundlessly to extinction. “Stop. Stop. Stop.” This idiotic celebration, at a time of death. As if in mockery of a man’s death. Even in Jones Point, where death awaited her. Lurid bright carnival colors pitching up into the now-darkening sky over the river. Exploding yellow calyxes, crimson eyeballs, streamers of rainbow guts. Hideous, hellish. Marina recalled that fireworks are jokey symbols of sexual orgasm, and the thought repelled her. Never us. And now never.”
Middle Age by Joyce Carol Oates
Paradoxically, I find the passage beautiful as it describes something the narrator sees as abhorrent. It’s precisely why I am in awe of the masterful craft of Joyce Carol Oates. Thank you, Joyce, and many happy returns of the day!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
Happy Birthday Kathleen E. Woodiwiss!
It’s time to honor the birthday of author Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. Her title character Shanna had a father who put a lot of pressure on her to marry before her birthday.
“You have a year to settle your fancies,” he roared. “Your period of grace ceases on your first-and-twentieth year, the day marking your birth. If you have not wed into a family of the aristocracy by then, I’ll name the next ready swain still young enough to get you with child as your husband. And if I must drag you to the altar in chains, you will obey!”
Yikes! I hope author Kathleen Woodiwiss never had that kind of problem! Those kinds of decisions should be personal and be in one’s own time. I hope you enjoyed this little ditty in honor of another great author’s birthday!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
Fodder for Fiction Weekly Author Birthday Bash
HAPPY BIRTHDAY NORA EPHRON!
Today is Nora Ephron’s Birthday. Over the years, Nora Ephron has made me laugh (When Harry Met Sally), cry (Silkwood)– okay, mostly laugh (Sleepless In Seattle). She just has that way of making me see humor in my own insecurities and predicaments! I thought what better way than to share a brief excerpt from her book I Feel Bad About My Neck, Considering the Alternative (which if you haven’t read – stop reading this blog entry right now, buy the book and read it. You’ll love this collection of essays!) Enjoy!
“When I turned sixty, I had a big birthday party in Las Vegas, which happens to be one of my top five places. We spent the weekend eating and drinking and gambling and having fun. One of my friends threw twelve passes at the craps table and we all made some money and screamed and yelled and I went to bed deliriously happy. The spell lasted for several days, and as a result, I managed to avoid thinking about what it all meant. Denial has been a way life for me for many years. I actually believe in denial. It seemed to me that the only way to deal with a birthday of this sort was to do everything possible to push it from my mind.”
I Feel Bad About My Neck, Considering the Alternative, by Nora Ephron
I hope Nora’s days are filled with denial-ridden happiness for many years to come!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO RUTH PRAWER JHABVALA!
FODDER FOR FICTION WEEKLY AUTHOR BIRTHDAY BASH
Let’s celebrate the birthday of Booker Prize winning novelist and writer of over 25 screenplays, including two Academy Award-winning screenplays, Howards End and A Room with a View, as well as Remains of the Day – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. To honor the occasion, I’m sharing a passage from her Booker Prize winning book, Heat and Dust, where she takes her readers through a party game. Enjoy!
“Now he was in an excellent mood and the party began to go with a swing. The servants had unpacked the picnic hampers, filling the sacred grove with roasted chickens, quails, and potted shrimps. The young men were very lively and entertained sometimes with practical jokes which they played on each other, and sometimes with songs and Urdu verses. One of them had brought a lute-like instrument out of which he plucked some bittersweet notes. The lute also provided the music for the game of musical chairs they played, with cushions laid in a row. It happened – whether by accident or design Olivia didn’t know – that she and the Nawab were the last two players left. Very, very slowly they circled around the one remaining cushion, keeping their eyes on each other, each alert to what the other might do next. Everyone watched, the lute played. For a moment she thought that, as an act of courtesy, he was going to let her win; but quite suddenly – he heard the music stop before she did – he flung himself on the one remaining cushion. He had won! He laughed out loud and threw up both his arms in triumph. He was really tremendously pleased.”
Excerpt, Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
I’m so glad to celebrate another masterful story tellers special day here at Fodder for Fiction.
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
http://www.LLLeibow.com
It’s Harper Lee’s FFF Birthday Celebration!
Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is a masterpiece worthy of its Pulitzer-prize winning acclaim. It’s been called “one of the best-loved stories of all time.” I’m right there with all of the other lovers of this novel. I first read it when I was in seventh grade, and have picked it up so many times since, I can’t count. Thank you Harper Lee for writing such a beautiful story.
This week’s Fodder for Fiction Author Birthday Bash celebration is for – you guessed it – Harper Lee!
In honor of her special day, I’m sharing a where-babies-come-from excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird.
Enjoy!
“Dill’s voice was his own again: “Oh, they ain’t mean. They kiss you and hug you god night and good mornin’ and goodbye and tell you they love you—Scout, let’s get us a baby.”
“Where?”
There was a man Dill had heard of who had a boat that he rowed across to a foggy island where all theses babies were; you could order one—
“That’s a lie. Aunty said God drops ‘em down the chimney. At least that’s what I think she said.” For once, Aunty’s diction had not been too clear.
“Well that ain’t so. You get babies from each other. But there’s this man, too—he has all these babies just waitin’ to wake up, he breathes life into ‘em. …”
Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies. He was slowly talking himself to sleep and taking me with him, but in the quietness of his foggy island there rose the faded image of a gray house with sad brown doors.
“Dill?”
“Mm?”
“Why do you recon Boo Radley’s never run off?”
Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me.
“Maybe he doesn’t have anywhere to run off to. . . .”
Excerpt, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Share what you love about Harper Lee. I’d love to hear it. Come back again next Wednesday for another Fodder for Fiction Author Birthday Bash!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLOTTE BRONTE!
Fodder for Fiction Author Birthday Bash
This week’s Fodder for Fiction Birthday Bash is for Charlotte Bronte. Poor Jane Eyre was excluded from the celebrations at Gateshead. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t appreciate the festivities. This passage makes me feel like I’m spying on the party, right along with Jane! I thought it was the perfect excerpt to share in honor of Charlotte Bronte’s Birthday. Enjoy!
November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given. From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety consisted in witnessing the daily appareling of Eliza and Georgiana, and seeing them descend to the drawing-room, dressed out in thin muslin frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair elaborately ringletted; and afterwards, in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footman, to the jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawing-room door opened and closed. When tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stairhead to the solitary and silent nursery there, though somewhat sad, I was not miserable.” Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
(Second Jane Eyre): “There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughters—very elegant young ladies indeed; and there are the Honourable Blanch and Mary Ingram, most beautiful women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanch, six or seven years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a Christmas ball and party Mr. Rochester gave. You should have seen the dining-room that day—how richly it was decorated, how brilliantly lit up! I should think there were fifty ladies and gentlemen present—all of the first county families; and Miss Ingram was considered the bell of the evening.” Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Share what you love about Charlotte Bronte. I’d love to hear it.
Come back again next Wednesday for another Fodder for Fiction Author Birthday Bash!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s
Happy Birthday Eudora Welty!
FODDER FOR FICTION WEEKLY AUTHOR BIRTHDAY BASH
If you’re a regular visitor here at Fodder for Fiction, or if you’ve read any of my fiction, you probably realize that I love food – and I love what a given character notices about the smells, tastes, and presentations of food tells you about that character’s personality. In line with that, in honor of the birthday of Eudora Welty, who is one of my favorite prose-portrait artists, I thought I’d share a bit of dialogue from her work revealing the kind of lovely feast worthy of her special day. I only hope she researched these beautiful and delicious treats first hand in order to write this!
“Listen and I’ll tell you what Miss Nell served at the party,” Loch’s mother said softly, with little waits in her voice. She was just a glimmer at the foot of his bed.
“Ma’am.”
“An orange scooped out and filled with orange juice, with the top put back on and decorated with icing leaves, a straw stuck in. A slice of pineapple with a heap of candied sweet potatoes on it, and a little handle of pastry. A cup made out of toast, filed with creamed chicken, fairly warm. A sweet peach pickle with flower petals around it of different-colored cream cheese. A swan made of a cream puff. He had whipped cream feathers, a pastry neck, green icing eyes, A pastry biscuit the size of a marble with a little date filling.” She sighed abruptly.
Excerpt, The Golden Apples by Eudora Welty
Are you hungry?… me too. Before you leave to grab a snack or watch the food network, tell me some of your favorite Eudora Welty stories. What better way to honor what would be her 101st birthday!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
http://www.LLLeibow.com
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAYA ANGELOU!
Weekly Fodder For Fiction Author Birthday Bash
This week at Fodder for Fiction, we’re celebrating the inspiring poet and author, Maya Angelou. I’m sharing a brief shout of happiness, as described by her. I thought it was a fitting jubilant statement of how happy I am that her work has touched my heart. Thank you Maya! Many happy returns of the day!
“After a few squeaky misses I overcame my reserve and tore my tonsils loose with a yell that would have been worthy of Zapata. I was happy, Dad was proud and my new friends were gracious. A woman brought chicharrones (in the South they’re called cracklings) in a greasy newspaper. I ate the fried pig skins, danced, screamed and drank the extra-sweet and sticky Coca-Cola with the nearest approach to abandonment I had ever experienced. As new revelers joined the celebration I was introduced as la nina de Baylee, and as quickly accepted.” Excerpt, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Join me each week on Wednesdays for another Author Birthday Bash at Lisa Leibow’s Fodder for Fiction.
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO AUTHOR JENNIFER WEINER!
In honor of Jennifer Weiner’s birthday, I’m sharing an excerpt from her work about a mother’s first glimpse her new baby. I was torn when it came to choosing a passage to celebrate. If you read my blog on a regular basis or have read any of my fiction, you probably guessed how much I love food. And Jennifer Weiner has some delicious dish descriptions in her narrative. But, once again, I decided it more fitting to choose something that captures a new life and one author’s expression of a paradoxically universal and unique experience of the day a baby is born.
They eased me into a wheelchair, sore and stitched up, hurting all over, and wheeled me to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I couldn’t go in, they explained, but I could see her through the window. A nurse pointed her out. “There,” she said, gesturing.
I leaned so close my forehead pressed on the glass. She was so small. A wrinkled pink grapefruit. Limbs no bigger than my pinky, hands the size of my thumbnail, a head the size of a smallish nectarine. Tiny eyes squinched shut, a look of outrage on her face. A dusting of black fuzz on top of her head, a nondescript beige-ish hat on top of that. “She weighs almost three pounds,” the nurse who was pushing me said.
Baby, I whispered, and tapped my fingers against the windows, drumming a soft rhythm. She hadn’t been moving, but when I tapped she pinwheeled her arms. Waving at me, I imagined. Hi, baby, I said. Excerpt, Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner.
If you like Jennifer Weiner’s books, recommend your favorite to me! I’m listening!
Take care,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com