Posted in 25 Things, Art, Authors, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Fiction, Film / TV / Video, Growing Older, Money, Music, Photography, Politics, Reading, Writers, Writing, tagged 1970's Bestsellers, 1970's history, American bestsellers, goddess of poetry, goddess of wisdom, how literature enriches life, Jakob H. F. Fjelde, literature, Minerva, Minneapolis Central Library, the 1970's on April 24, 2008 | 22 Comments »
Minerva, 1889 - 1890, Roman goddess of poetry, music, wisdom, and warriors (Greek, Athena), bronze sculpture by Norwegian American artist, Jakob H. F. Fjelde, downtown Minneapolis Central Library, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
The first black hole was discovered in the same decade that Star Wars was released (and not by Columbo, [...]
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Posted in Authors, Bones, Books, Culture, Dreams, Fiction, Haiku, On the Road, Photography, Poetry, Quotes, Reading, Structure, Vision, Writers, Writing, tagged Art of Rebellion, book reviews, Books, boundary busters, interviews, Jack Kerouac, Jack Kerouac Does Haiku, Joyce Johnson, Kerouac Speaks, MacNeil/Lehrer, NPR, On the Road, On The Road Scroll Exhibition Tour, Some American Haikus, Women of the Beat Generation, writers who changed the face of writing on November 29, 2007 | 33 Comments »
On The Road, Summer 2007, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
In September 2007, I finished reading On The Road. It was the day the book turned 50. I have this thing for Kerouac. I consider him the James Dean of writers. I guess I’m easily swayed by myth.
On The Road didn’t [...]
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Posted in Authors, Bones, Death, Fiction, Quotes, Writers, Writing, tagged creative process, norman mailer quote, writing advice on November 10, 2007 | 10 Comments »
Norman Mailer died this morning. Here is a quote from Mailer:
I think it’s bad to talk about one’s present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.
Words to write by.
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Posted in 25 Things, Authors, Bones, Books, Culture, Death, Dreams, Fiction, Fotoblog, Life, Love, Memoir, Photography, Politics, Quotes, Reading, Relationships, Structure, Vision, Writers, Writing, tagged Ann Patchett, Bel Canto, Fitzgerald Theater, interviews, Kerri Miller, Lucy Grealy, Memoir, Minnesota, St Paul, Talking Volumes, The Second Coming, Truth & Beauty, W. B. Yeats, Writers, writers on tour, Writing, writing relationships on November 6, 2007 | 31 Comments »
Writer’s Hands IV, hands of Bel Canto author, Ann Patchett, signing a copy of her latest book, Run, Fitzgerald Theater, downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, October 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Part I.
On a rainy October night, inside the haunted Fitzgerald Theater, Ann Patchett held the audience rapt. She has created a huge life [...]
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Posted in Authors, Books, Fiction, Memoir, Photography, Practice, Relationships, Structure, Wake Up, Writers, Writing, Writing Topics, tagged Ann Patchett, Fitzgerald Theater, grief, joy, loss, Lucy Grealy, Practice, Truth & Beauty, Writers, Writing, Writing Topics on October 28, 2007 | 24 Comments »
What Have You Lost, Rainpainting Series, outside the Fitzgerald Theater, downtown, St. Paul, Minnesota, night of Ann Patchett, October 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
If you want to know someone, truly know someone, ask them about the things they have lost. No matter how long it’s been. It doesn’t matter. The things we [...]
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Posted in Authors, Bones, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Family, Fiction, Life, Practice, Structure, Vision, Work, Writers, Writing, tagged red Ravine interviews, Robert Wilder, Tales From The Teachers' Lounge, the practice of writing, the process of writing on September 21, 2007 | 23 Comments »
Images provided by Anna Crowe, Bantam Dell Publishing Group, Random
House, Inc.; Cover Art © 2007 by Jose Luis Pelaez, Inc./Picturequest; Cover
Design by Lynn Andreozzi. Photo of author Robert Wilder © 2007 by Jennifer
Esperanza. All rights reserved.
On Thursday, September 13, QuoinMonkey and ybonesy interviewed Robert Wilder, author of the recently [...]
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Posted in Art, Authors, Books, Culture, Dreams, Fiction, Gratitude, Great Places To Write, Memoir, Photography, Place, Random, Structure, Writers, Writing, tagged F Scott Fitzgerald, famous writers, Fitzgerald Theater, Minnesota, St Paul, vintage on September 16, 2007 | 14 Comments »
The Fitzgerald, St. Paul, Minnesota, April 2007, photo © 2007
by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Last April, I went to see Galway Kinnell at the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul. As my friend and I left the theater after a magnificent night of interviews and poetry, I turned and snapped this shot.
I am fortunate to live [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Art, Authors, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Fiction, Film / TV / Video, Growing Older, I Don't Remember, Memoir, Money, Photography, Politics, Random, Reading, Spirituality, Writers, Writing, tagged 1960's bestsellers, 1960's history, American bestsellers, American history, how literature enriches life, literature, Minneapolis Central Library, the 1960's on August 30, 2007 | 29 Comments »
BookMark, Minneapolis Central Library, downtown Minneapolis, through the rain, August 2007, opened May 2006, architecture by the design team of Cesar Pelli & Associates, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Time for another decade of bestselling books. At the end of the 1960’s, gas was 39¢ a gallon, a 1962 Jaguar XKE would set [...]
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Posted in Animals & Critters, Art, Culture, Dreams, Family, Fiction, Laughing, Money, Random, Spirituality, Vision on June 5, 2007 | 12 Comments »
Check out the mummified Chupacabra by Taxidermy artist Serina Brewer.
-Related to post Because Goat-Sucking Creatures Do Exist.
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Posted in Authors, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Fiction, Memoir, Politics, Random, Structure, Writers, Writing on May 18, 2007 | 14 Comments »
The National Latino Writers Conference is in Albuquerque today and tomorrow at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. La Bloga has a blurb about it, with mention of a few books having New Mexico themes.
Conference registrants get a chance to have their manuscripts reviewed by published authors, in this case Rudolfo Anaya and Ralph Flores. And [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Authors, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Fiction, Growing Older, I Don't Remember, Memoir, Personal, Poetry, Reading, Short Story, Structure, Topic Writing, Writers, Writing, tagged 10 Slam Dunks, Authors, Books, Ceremony, Frankenstein, Kahlil Gibran, Nancy Drew, Poe, Vonnegut, Writers, Writing on May 9, 2007 | 44 Comments »
It’s hard to come up with only 10 books that have had the most impact on my life. I’ve lived long enough to know there are many more than 10. But once I sat down to write, and began crawling through the recesses of childhood memory, a solid list began to form.
It reads to me [...]
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Posted in Art, Authors, Body, Bones, Books, Culture, Death, Dreams, Fiction, Gratitude, Life, Money, Obituaries & Epitaphs, Politics, Random, Reading, Structure, Vision, Wake Up, Writers, Writing, tagged Art, artist, Breakfast of Champions, Goodbye Blue Monday, Kurt Vonnegut, Mike Schultz, Not That You Asked, painting, Paintings for Heifer International. writers, Steve Almond, Why I Crush On Vonnegut, Writing on May 7, 2007 | 11 Comments »
-Goodbye Blue Monday, For Kurt Vonnegut, 5″ x 7″ oil, April 2007, painting by Mike Schultz © 2007 - 2008, all rights reserved, used by permission of the artist, -posted on red Ravine, May 7th, 2007
At the time I wrote Forget Vonnegut - Jane Kenyon Lives On , I ran across this painting of Vonnegut [...]
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Posted in Art, Authors, Bones, Books, Doodling, Dreams, Fiction, Love, Memoir, Reading, Secrets, Silence, Spirituality, Topic Writing, Wake Up on May 5, 2007 | 12 Comments »
Mrs. Rhodes was my tenth grade English teacher at Valley High School. She was petite, with small ears, and she wore her long graying hair swooped up, often in a giant bun or thick braid.
In my mind I see her at the front of the class wearing a crisp white cotton shirt and a long [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Art, Authors, Books, Family, Fiction, I Don't Remember, Life, Love, Memoir, Personal, Practice, Reading, Structure, Topic Writing on May 4, 2007 | 2 Comments »
We weren’t readers in my family. Well, except Dad. He read books like In Cold Blood and Hawaii (which, at 937 pages, was too big for me to ever want to take on). Mom read The National Enquirer.
Why, then, is it so hard to come up with my list of all the books I’ve loved before…who [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Authors, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Fiction, Film / TV / Video, Growing Older, Memoir, Music, Random, Reading, Short Story, Writers, Writing, tagged 1950's bestsellers, 1950's history, American bestsellers, bestsellers, Books, how literature enriches life, literature, the 1950's, Writers, Writing on May 2, 2007 | 10 Comments »
It was the 1950’s. Gas was 29¢ a gallon, cigarettes 25¢ a pack, a hospital stay was $35 a day. The Franklin National Bank in New York issued the first credit card, and the World’s first shopping mall in the U.S. - Seattle’s Northgate Mall was built. The First Grammy Awards happened, RCA’s Color Television [...]
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Posted in Animals & Critters, Art, Authors, Books, Culture, Fiction, Film / TV / Video, Money, Place, Random, Structure, Writers on April 26, 2007 | 11 Comments »
A friend of mine sent an email today letting me know our PBS station is airing a documentary tonight on writer Rudolfo Anaya. It’s called From Curandera to Chupacabra: The Stories of Rudolfo Anaya. You can watch the documentary via the link; it’s only 26 minutes long.
My favorite Anaya book is Bless Me, Ultima. His latest book, Curse of [...]
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Posted in Authors, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Death, Dreams, Fiction, Film / TV / Video, Haiku, Life, Nature, Poetry, Politics, Quotes, Reading, Structure, Vision, Writers, Writing, tagged Haiku, James Baldwin, Native Son, Practice, Richard Wright, Writers, Writing on April 21, 2007 | 3 Comments »
A few nights ago, I stayed up past midnight writing a piece. PBS was on in the background. I wasn’t paying much attention until pre-film credits started to roll and I glanced up to see opening scenes of Native Son.
Not the 1951 version where Richard Wright played Bigger Thomas. It was the 1986 version with [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Authors, Body, Books, Culture, Fiction, Film / TV / Video, Home, Laughing, Life, Memoir, Personal, Photography, Place, Politics, Relationships, Secrets, Topic Writing, Writers, Writing, tagged Dyersville, Field Of Dreams, Iowa, Mary Tyler Moore, Shoeless Joe Jackson, shoes, W.P. Kinsella on April 20, 2007 | 1 Comment »
When the topic of shoes posted last week, all I could think about was Shoeless Joe Jackson. Remember his appearance in Field of Dreams? I can picture him walking out of a sparkling corn field in Dyersville, Iowa, scuffling over to the bleachers, tossing a baseball, hand to pocket, hand to pocket, talking to Kevin [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Authors, Books, Fiction, Politics, Random, Reading, Writers, Writing, tagged Authors, Books, John Cheever, Pulitzer Prize, Writing on April 19, 2007 | 5 Comments »
I saw a post early this week by Janice Harayda at One Minute Book Reviews that reminded me it is Pulitzer week.
I like her philosophy of book reviewing. In her post, Famous Pulitzer Losers – 10 Great Novels That Didn’t Win the Fiction Prize and Which Books Beat Them, Janice compares books that didn’t make the cut, [...]
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