” In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.” C.S. Lewis, from a letter of writing advice he sent to a young reader.
What Teachers Make by Taylor Mali.
Louisa May Alcott’s family home where she wrote Little Women, called Orchard House. 1) I love houses that have names. 2) This is where I will now picture Little Women unfolding. 3) If you love nerdy day trips with a passion (I know I do, adjusts glasses), hold onto your socks, because it’s the 100th year anniversary of Louisa May’s house becoming a museum and they have a line-up of events that will make your nerd heart beat so much faster. Including thematic tours, 1912 living history portrayers, popular 1912 refreshments, and a Centennial Legislative Proclamation and Postal Stamp Cancellation Ceremony. I don’t even know what that last thing IS but I’m so excited that it exists.
I have nothing now but praise for my life. I’m not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more. … What I dread is the isolation. … There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready.
— Maurice Sendak on Fresh Air in 2011. [all interviews with Sendak here] (via nprfreshair)
(via nprfreshair)
“What is your favourite word?”
“And. It is so hopeful.”
— From an interview with Margaret Atwood.
(Source: beinlovewithyourlife, via writingtoreachyou)
From the Whitney Museum’s retrospective:
“Paul Thek’s ‘96 Sacraments’ were written in one of his notebooks (#75, 1975). Thek wrote in a journal daily in the 1970s and 80s. Upon his death he had filled almost 100 journals, most of which were black and white composition books.
In the catalogue for Paul Thek: Diver, A Retrospective, Tina Kukielski writes: ‘Like most journals, they reveal deeply personal thoughts about friends, relationships, and sex, as well as Thek’s private shames and insecurities, and his efforts—like prayers—to be better in every way, especially as an artist.’”
