by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Oct 30, 2008 | craft of writing, Dani Shapiro, details |
Dani Shapiro is one of my all-time favorite writers. She knows how to tell a story–how to slowly release details in order to build tension and lure the reader forward. The first book of hers I read was Family History, published in 2003, but which I did not...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Oct 28, 2008 | reviews, shapes, truth |
The Lucky Ones is Rachel Cusk’s fifth book. In it, there is a Contents page, which announces five sections. Each section stands by itself. There is a passing reference in each section to at least one character in another section. With a lovely circularity,...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Oct 27, 2008 | journeys, poetry, the day |
Pine Mountain Trail Pine Mountain, Georgia October 26, 2008 23 miles 11hours, 7 minutes The day grew light, then dark again– In all its rich hours, what happened? from Apple by Jane Hirshfield Given Sugar, Given...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Oct 26, 2008 | journeys, poetry |
Today, Sunday, October 26th, I’m walking. It’s a day in the woods. An autumn ritual (because of spring snakes). A 23-mile hike, which last year took 11 hours. We choose the date by trying to maximize the chance of cool weather with enough daylight...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Oct 25, 2008 | Pam Houston, stories, truth |
Pam Houston is one of my all-time favorite writers. She is a master at getting it out of her head and onto the page. Take for example this bit of dialogue from her novel, Sight Hound: “You know,” she said, “I’m not going to be one of those...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Oct 23, 2008 | memory, shapes, truth |
Charles Frazier’s second book,Thirteen Moons, is narrated by Will Cooper, who has a friend named Bear, a Cherokee Indian chief. “I cannot decide whether it is an illness or a sin, the need to write things down and fix the flowing world in one rigid form. ...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Oct 22, 2008 | my writing |
marry tale #2: the kitten Once upon a time there was a man and a woman, who decided to become the husband and the wife. They were very new at being the husband and the wife and had no skills at it. And so they had a problem. They weren’t quite sure how to handle...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Oct 20, 2008 | novels, reviews, stories |
In a 1921 New York Times article entitled, “What is a Novel, Anyhow?”, Henry Kitchell Webster, writes “A novel is defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary as a fictitious prose narrative of sufficient length to fill one or more volumes. Well, do you...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Oct 18, 2008 | catching moments, details |
The Oxford American Dictionary defines collaboration as “working jointly, especially in a literary or artistic production.” It defines commitment as “the process or an instance of committing oneself.” And committing as “pledging or...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Oct 16, 2008 | memoir |
In his memoir, Dog Years, the poet Mark Doty writes, “only part of our reality is representable in words. I feel immersed in things I can’t name most of the time.” Still, he is a poet and a writer. He spends his life fighting against the...
