by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 8, 2008 | novels, shapes |
On Monday, February 26, 1951, John Steinbeck wrote, “I don’t understand why some days are wide open and others are closed off, some days smile and others have thin slitted eyes and others still are days which worry. And it does not seem to be me but the...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 7, 2008 | truth |
This morning I remember Ellen Gilchrist writing about getting down on the floor to play with her books. I want to find that passage. With my coffee in one hand, I begin to pull her books off the shelf. I think it’s in Falling Though Space, her journal, but I...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 6, 2008 | craft of writing |
“Her father turned around. ‘Pancakes?’ he asked her. Winnie didn’t want pancakes. ‘Sure,’ she said.” You will find these simple sentences, which take you to the heart of Winnie, at the end of the story “Ship in a...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 5, 2008 | shapes |
This morning I’m searching for shapes, instead of schedules. What shape will today take–will these writings take? In Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote, “The pattern of our lives is essentially circular.” ...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 4, 2008 | first novels |
In The Writing Life, Annie Dillard writes of schedules as nets for “catching days.” She says, “I have been looking into schedules.” Then she describes the schedule of a Danish aristocrat living a hundred years ago, who started his day by...
