Meet a Kenyon Writer
Today's Kenyon writer: Tom Hawks
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
"A poem must resist the intelligence almost successfully."--Wallace Stevens.
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
Paper comments, mostly.
Occasionally, poems.
One of my favorite writers:
George Saunders
Today's Kenyon Writer: Natalie Shapero
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
Here's a fun quote about writing with urgency, from Frank O'Hara: "You just go on your nerve. If someone's chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don't turn around and shout, 'Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.'"
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
I'm mostly a poet, though these days I write short prose pieces, too, for the Kenyon Review Blog.
This past fall, I got to write some small essays for inclusion in Ann Hamilton's amazing art installation at the Park Avenue Armory, and now I am at work on a set of longer essays.
I also write in a personal journal, almost every day, to collect scraps for use in future writing projects.
One of my favorite writers:
Joan Didion, in particular her book The White Album.
Today's Kenyon Writer: Aaron McIlhenny
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
I'd say "write drunk; edit sober" by Hemingway, but that one's already taken, so I'll go with "Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be," by Mark Twain
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
mainly facebook statuses and tweets, although I've been considering moving into the wide world of tumblr.
short stories are fun too
My favorite writers:
J.K. Rowling for the win, but I really like Vonnegut and Palahniuk too.
Today's Kenyon Writer: Daniel Kipp
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
"A book must be an ice-axe to break the frozen sea inside us." – Franz Kafka
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
By choice--
haiku
poems (for the page and for performance/slams)
little notes on index cards
For classes--
essays
my favorite writers:
Chuck Palahniuk for prose, Regie Gibson for poetry
Today's Kenyon Writer: Nathaniel Lotze
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer." --Ernest Hemingway
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
songs
poems
essays
short fiction
currently working on a novel
One of my favorite writers:
Cormac McCarthy
Today's Kenyon Writer: Dorothy Michalski
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
"It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way." --Ernest Hemingway
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
Text messages
Emails
Letters (although I have to admit I don't do this nearly as much as I used to - I was a prolific letter writer to many of my nine siblings, plus I had about a dozen pen pals I met through a quilting magazine a long time ago. Now we exchange mostly e-mails)
Notes inside greeting cards including birthday cards, and sadly, sympathy cards
Short plays
Play programs
Comments via the internet at various sites such as Facebook, Flickr, Ravelry, blogs I follow, news sites, etc.
Shopping lists
One of my favorite writers:
Laura Ingalls Wilder (We named our daughter after her)
Today's Kenyon Writer: Abbey Monnin
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." ? Ernest Hemingway
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
Writing critiques for the team of writers I work with
Editing novels, articles, and reports
Writing articles and whitepapers
Writing creative fiction
One of my favorite writers:
Flannery O'Connor
Today's Kenyon Writer: Derek Dashiell
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
"You owe reality nothing and the truth about your feelings everything." ~Richard Hugo
Some of the kinds of writing I do:Novels
Short Stories
Flash Fiction
Poetry
Scripts (plays, movies)
Video game dialogue
Song lyrics
Memoir-ish stuff
Essays
For Hika
For The Collegian
For contests
One of my favorite writers:
Tim Schafer
Today's Kenyon Writer: Julia Weaver
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
"Writers aren't people exactly. Or, if they're any good, they're a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person." --F. Scott Fitzgerald
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
creative writing (poems, short fiction, plays)
analytic writing (English essays, Art History formal analyses)
research papers
note-taking
applications
One of my favorite writers:
Toni Morrison
Today's Kenyon Writer: Andrea Odegaard
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
" No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader." --Robert Frost.
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
Novels (fantasy and historical)
Poetry
History essays, other college essays
Moodle responses
Resumes
e-mails
letters and postcards
One of my favorite writers:
J. R. R. Tolkien
Today's Kenyon Writer: Jameyanne Fuller
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
"Wasn't writing a kind of soaring, an achievable form of flight, of fancy, of the imagination?" -- Ian McEwan, Atonement
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
Novels and short story (both literary fiction and fantasy)
essays (in both English and Italian)
notes
e-mails
lists
One of my favorite writers:
Tamora Pierce
Today's Kenyon Writer: Manjul Bhusal Sharma
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
"Write the book you want to read, not the one you believe that you should write." --David Ritz
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
essays for my website (www.manjulbhusal.com.np)
poems
reviews of books
letters and postcards
e-mails and Facebook statuses
temporary ink tattoos on peoples' hands
One of my favorite writers:
Dan Brown
Today's Kenyon Writer: Jordi Alonso
favorite quotations about writing:
I write only because
There is a voice within me
That will not be still ––Sylvia Plath
and "Write drunk; edit sober"–– Ernest Hemingway
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
I mainly write poetry––lately I've been writing sonnets and rubai'yat on the formal side of things, and long stream-of-conciousness monologues late at night which I let rest for a few days before assembling certain lines into poems.
Letters to friends
Facebook statuses / comments
I've started 2 novels; finished neither of them.
One of my favorite writers:
Billy Collins
Today's Kenyon Writer: Emma Therrien '16
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." -Ernest Hemingway
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
Essays
flash fiction
short stories
ideas for future novels
class notes
letters
emails
tweets
to-do lists
One of my favorite writers:
Chuck Palahniuk
Today's Kenyon Writer: Jeanne Griggs
One of my favorite quotations about writing:
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." Douglas Adams
Some of the kinds of writing I do:
Writing on this website
Text for Writing Center publications
Reviews of books and poems
Letters and postcards
E-mails and Facebook statuses
Captions and quotations (sometimes poems) attached to images on Tumblr
Comments on other peoples' writing
Writing about writing
One of my favorite writers:
Jonathan Swift