Monday

Feb. 9, 1998

Perhaps the World Ends Here

by Joy Harjo

MONDAY 2/9

Today's Reading: "Perhaps the World Ends Here" by Joy Harjo from THE WOMAN WHO FELL FROM THE SKY, published by W.W. Norton.

Today is the FEAST DAY OF APPOLLONIA, patron saint of dentists and toothache sufferers

It's the birthday of writer ALICE WALKER, best known for her 1982 novel THE COLOR PURPLE, born on a farm near Eatonton, Georgia, in 1944

Irish playwright and poet BRENDAN BEHAN (THE QUARE FELLOW; THE HOSTAGE) was born on this day in Dublin, 1923. "I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer." He was a courier for the Irish Republican Army and spent years in jail after getting caught with a bomb in Liverpool, England

The Russian novelist DOSTOYEVSKY died on this date in 1881 in St. Petersburg, just a few months after finishing The Brothers Karamazov

The American humorist GEORGE ADE was born on this day, 1866, in Kentland, Indiana. He was a reporter in the 1890s for the old Chicago Record when he started to write little fictional sketches that ended with a moral C something like, "Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry." He published them in 1899 as Fables in Slang, and it was such a hit that he began a weekly column of fables that ran for 10 years and was syndicated in all the major papers

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

«

»

  • “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams
  • “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler
  • “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt
  • “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman
  • “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov
  • “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron
  • “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
  • “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick
  • “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell
  • “Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote
  • “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams
  • “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch
  • “The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao
  • “Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” —Anthony Powell
  • “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham
Current Faves - Learn more about poets featured frequently on the show