by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 21, 2008 | catching moments, reading |
At the end of The Hours, in the Acknowledgments, Michael Cunningham thanks Three Lives and Company for being in existence. He describes this bookstore as “…a sanctuary and, to me, the center of the universe. It has for some time been the most reliable...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 19, 2008 | craft of writing |
Niagara Falls All Over Again (published in 2001) is a well-crafted novel written by Elizabeth McCracken. In the space of two and a half pages, the author uses several techniques to pull the reader into the story. Early in the novel, the author describes an accident...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 17, 2008 | catching moments, poetry |
Last Friday night, at Leon Coverson Stadium in Greenville, Georgia, the Patriots faced the Cougars. It was the red and black against the blue and white. At the start of the game, the sun lingered behind a cloud. A few minutes later, smoke from the concession stand...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 16, 2008 | reading |
One of the reasons I write is to find out what I’m thinking, what I mean to say, and then to be able to hold onto it. When I talk, I often repeat myself with such slight variations that it must be maddening to a listener. I tend to want to summarize. I want to...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 15, 2008 | catching moments |
I hear the rain, and then I don’t. I look out the window to see the bright green end-of-summer leaves twinkling, like stars, better than stars. I look to the sky for an explanation. The drops of rain are carefully spaced apart, and the sun is shining. The drops...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 14, 2008 | catching moments, reading |
Last Sunday I was looking through Ellen Gilchrist’s Falling Through Space trying to find the passage where she writes about getting down on the floor to play with her books. Well, I couldn’t find it, but in the process, I discovered that Falling Through...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 13, 2008 | poetry |
I’m a writer. A writer who hasn’t yet published her novel. And I had a dream. Not I have a dream–which of course I do, to publish a novel. But I had a dream. In my dream, a literary agent told me my writing wasn’t good because it was...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 12, 2008 | craft of writing, stories |
If you want to see a writer move seamlessly from one scene to the next without any extra words, take a look at this passage from the “Big Bertha Stories” in Bobbie Ann Mason’s collection, Midnight Magic: Jeannette wanted to stop for ice cream. She...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 11, 2008 | memory, reading, the day |
“He said, ‘It still looks like an accident, the first one. Even from this distance, way outside the thing, how many days later, I’m standing here thinking it’s an accident.’ ‘Because it has to be.’ ‘It has to be,’...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Sep 10, 2008 | first novels |
The short list for the Booker Prize was announced yesterday. Six novels were chosen from the long list of thirteen. Of the six, two are first novels! Only one was written by a woman. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet read any of these. The short list is as...
