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My Writing Mentors

5/30/2017

5 Comments

 
Picture
I find myself drawn to authors
     Who write honestly about their lives.
     The joyful, the horrific, the messy in-between,
     Obsessive prose that consumes their lives,
     Resulting in pages vibrating with voice.
 
I have many mentors,
     but I have just one hour,
     to write this Tuesday-afternoon-blog. 
     Time is ticking,
     So here are authors who first come to mind:
 
Bill Bryson finds the humor in the subtlest of objects--
     From him I learn to look for life’s minutia.
Anne Lamott finds light within the darkness--
     From her I learn to find hope in the hopeless.
Erik Laarson finds stunning events from history
     and infuses them with real, human emotions.
     From him I learn that we live history.
     And one day, we too will be pegs on a timeline.
Toni Morrison writes about lives so different from my own.
     But are our lives really all that different?
     Don’t we all travel down different pathways of pain?
Isabel Wilkerson writes about a Great African-American migration,
     About the South when I live--
     About the escape of those who felt trapped by it--
     And she teaches me a history I should have learned in high school.
Pat Conroy rewrote his childhood over and over again
      Hoping to make sense of it.
      I don’t know if he ever did.
      I don’t know if I ever will.
Ernest Hemingway, the opposite of Conroy,
      Wrote simple, direct, and unadorned.
      There’s so much we can say,
      In just a few well-connected words to form a sentence.
Harper Lee, with just one book,
      (I don’t count the second)
      Never expected the success that came with Mockingbird.
      She taught me that you write what you know--
      And sometimes the whole world resonates with it.
Langston Hughes, my GOD, LANGSTON HUGHES!
      Montage of a Dream Deferred,
      Mother to Son,
      Still Here.
      I learned it’s okay to be jealous of a writer’s talents.
 
This list is short,
     Too short--
     One day I'll add more,
     Mentors who speak to me when I read their work,
          And admire it from a distance--
          As a fellow writer reading away, just traveling through.
           

5 Comments
Maureen link
5/30/2017 07:37:28 pm

I wondered who your mentors were and was excited to see so many familiar and much-loved authors! I love this line, "Mentors who speak to me when I read their work." I will try to be a better listener as I read!

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daine Anderson
5/30/2017 07:52:43 pm

I love this reflection, especially about Pat Conroy. And Langston Hughes...working with a group of students who choose poems to recite at our district multicultural festival, i have seen how his poems speak to them.

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Susan Kennedy link
5/30/2017 09:00:39 pm

Love so many of these, but am especially inspired by Bryson to get out there and my Annie Lamott to consider the day to day.

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Christie Wyman link
5/30/2017 09:10:31 pm

I'm embarrassed to admit I recently read my first Bill Bryson book -- The Road to Little Dribbling. I couldn't put it down and I've never laughed so hard. He really doesn't miss ANYTHING! He has helped me to be aware of so many little things. As Ralph Fletcher says, writers notice things...really notice things...and then think about them.

Reply
Dean W link
12/7/2020 01:16:00 am

Appreciate yoou blogging this

Reply



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    About the Author

    Brian Kissel is an Associate Professor of education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  His focus is writing instruction.  He lives in North Carolina with his wife, Hattie and three kiddos: Charlie, Ben, and Harriet.
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