Dear Literary Ladies,
How can a writer balance the need for quiet and solitude, with the desire for camaraderie? When I’m alone working, I feel the need for feedback; and when I’m in the company of other writers and talk about my work, I feel I’m seeking too much outside validation.
If you don’t keep and guard and mature your force and above all, have time and quiet to perfect your work, you will be writing things not much better than you did five years ago.
You must find a quiet place near the best companions (not those who admire and wonder at everything one does, but those who know the good things with delight!). Read More→
Virginia Woolf famously wrote, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” Leaving aside the question of what a woman writes—fiction or nonfiction, prose or poetry, journalism or blog posts, just how important is solitude for writers? How critical is it to have a room of one’s own?
In learning about the writing lives of classic women authors, the universality of the issues and struggles all writers experience is striking. Finding quiet time to write and a modicum of privacy was as great a challenge in the 19th century as it is for today’s women—writers, creators, workers, mothers …
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Eudora Welty (1909 – 2001), the respected Southern American author, was known for her ability to capture a sense of place in her novels, stories, and memoirs. Her work explores the separateness of individuals, the character of communities, family relationships, and the healing potential of love.
Welty’s writing style varied, but with no doubt ever that she was in command of her craft. Her stories and novels can be seen as quaint and understated or else wonderfully strange and funny.
Here are some inspiring thoughts on writing by Eudora Welty (most, fittingly, from her 2002 book On Writing), sure to encourage writers no matter where they are on their journeys. Read More→
Nella Larsen‘s 1929 novella Passing focuses on two middle-class Black women who reunite after a long break from their childhood friendship. Following are some insightful quotes from Passing by Nella Larsen, a classic novel of the Harlem Renaissance era.
Passing is the story of two friends, Irene and Clare, both of mixed race, and both who present a mostly white appearance.
But Clare has chosen to cross over the color line to live as white, even having married a white man who turns out to be a bigot. Irene “passes” when convenient, but lives in the Black community with her Black doctor husband and two sons. The women reunite after an absence of twelve years from their friendship, with dramatic consequences. Read More→
George Hutchinson’s biography, In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line (2006) delves into Larsen’s experience as a mixed-race woman in a society obsessed with identity.
This factor weighed in on Larsen’s unique perspective on the world, showing up as themes in her two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929).
Hutchinson pays homage to Nella Larsen‘s influence in the world of African-American art; namely the era of the Harlem Renaissance as she progressed as a writer despite the boundaries of race. Read More→
The Four Difficuties of Becoming A Writer is a segment excerpted from Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande (1934), proving that good writing advice is timeless.
Note from Literary Ladies: For the most part, Brande used the gendered pronoun he/him/his in the original essay unless specifically referring to a female, as was the style of the time.
Literary Ladies has changed those to female pronouns. Since the majority of our audience is female, it rings more relatable to the ear of our readers. I hope that Ms. Brande, may she rest in peace, will understand. And now, the excerpt by Dorothea Brande: Read More→
Description of The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty (1960) adapted from the 1972 Random House edition: Laurel Hand, long absent from the South, comes from Chicago to New Orleans, where her father dies after surgery.
With Fay, the stupid young wife of her father, Laurel returns to her former Mississippi home and stays a few days after the funeral for reunions with old friends. In a night alone in the house she grew up in, she confronts elements of the past and comes to a better understanding of it and of herself and her parents. Read More→
Dear Literary Ladies,
These days, publishers want to know how authors plan to find the audience for their book well before the final draft is submitted. It’s all about marketing and platform, which can be daunting and distracting.
Do you write for an audience or market as a work is in progress, or does that ultimately make for a less desirable outcome? Is it better to write to please yourself?
Those critics or well-wishers who think that I could have written better than I have are flattering me. Always I have written at the top of my bent at that particular time. It may be that this or that, written five years later or one year earlier, or under different circumstances, might have been better for it. Read More→
