It rained last night and the downspouts are running with snow melt this morning. On the patio, survivors of the snow.
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✍ Musings on Writing
Today I have been reading Will Cather's "Paul's Case" and John Cheever's "The Enormous Radio" in the Norton Anthology (see sidebar). I brought this book over as a writing study tool. It is required reading for the fiction track at the Whidbey Writers Workshop and is a veritable bible of good writing, wonderful to have on hand to dip into and learn from.
Cheever is an old favorite of mine from the 70's when I read the compilation of his short stories The Stories of John Cheever, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1979. From that reading, I remembered him as a skillful story teller who had flashes of dazzling description that made me stop reading and catch my breath.
On looking him up today, in Wikipedia and this good article in the British Guardian newspaper online, I realized that he was born in Quincy, Massachussetts, like my father, though in the better neighborhood of Wollaston. He probably spent time at Wollaston Beach, where I learned to swim on outings with my grandmother Norton, who lived in a house at 7 Ocean Street until she died.
Interesting to read of Cheever's early difficulties in writing and getting published, he who is now considered to have written "some of the most brilliant short stories ever published". It seems that this is ever the case. So, take that to heart all you writers out there.
Sending love.
Keep writing!
N2
