http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc5_vcYP7vc

Jeffrey Eugenides is an American writer who has released three novels: The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex and The Marriage Plot. Eugenides won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for Middlesex, and The Virgin Suicides was made into a film. In this video, Eugenides speaks about what influences him, including his hometown of Detroit.

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Jeffrey Eugenides On His Influences appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s702YLQezTs

Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan writer and physician. Hosseini’s father was a diplomat, and when Khaled was eleven the family moved to France. His debut novel, The Kite Runner, won critical acclaim and went on to become a feature film. In this video, Hosseini talks about what it was like to live in exile and how he feels he can best serve Afghanistan.

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Khaled Hosseini On Life In Exile appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8Zgu2hrs2k

Toni Morrison is an American novelist and professor best known for her novels The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved. In 1993, Morrison received the Nobel Prize for Literature. In this video, Morrison discusses how her life and experiences led her to write The Bluest Eye and what she was trying to capture in that novel.

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Toni Morrison On Her Motivation For Writing appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axxcq4Yt2Ck

Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist whose works include Midnight’s Children, Shalimar the Clown and Haroun and the Sea of Stories. In 1988, Rushdie released his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses. The Satanic Verses was considered controversial and sparked protests from Muslims in several countries. On February 14, 1989, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, issued a fatwa calling for his assassination. Rushdie was subsequently put under police protection by the British government and spent ten years in hiding. The decree has since been lifted. In this video, Salman Rushdie discusses what it was like to have to go into hiding during that time and what it was like to write about the ordeal decades later.

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Salman Rushdie Discusses The Fatwa Issued Against Him appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91eJiPqVOAM

Judy Blume is a writer whose novels are geared towards children and young adults. Her most famous works include “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret”, “Forever”, “Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing” and “Superfudge”. Blume’s books have sold more than 80 million copies and have been translated into 32 languages. In this video, Blume talks about developing her love of books at a young age.

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Judy Blume On Her Childhood appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uALf_v0zxgE

Alice Walker is a writer best known for her 1982 book The Color Purple, which was the recipient of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The book was later adapted into a film of the same name by Steven Spielberg and went on to become a musical as well. In this video, Walker talks about how the inspiration for this novel came from a desire to connect with her ancestors.

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“…I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, & how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know.—There are a few Typical errors—& a “said he” or a “said she” would sometimes make the Dialogue more immediately clear—but ‘I do not write for such dull Elves’…”

Jane Austen, from a drawing by sister Cassandra. Source: Creative Commons

Jane Austen is one of the most well-known authors in English literature. She is best known for her works Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. The day after Pride and Prejudice was published, Austen wrote a letter to her sister, Cassandra, in which she refers to the book as “my own darling Child from London”

Chawton Friday Jany 29.

I hope you received my little parcel by J. Bond on Wednesday eveng, my dear Cassandra, & that you will be ready to hear from me again on Sunday, for I feel that I must write to you to day. Your parcel is safely arrived & everything shall be delivered as it ought. Thank you for your note. As you had not heard from me at that time it was very good in you to write, but I shall not be so much your debtor soon.—I want to tell you that I have got my own darling Child from London;—on Wednesday I received one Copy, sent down by Falknor, with three lines from Henry to say that he had given another to Charles, & sent a 3d by the Coach to Godmersham; just the two Sets which I was least eager for the disposal of. I wrote to him immediately to beg for my two other Sets, unless he would take the trouble of forwarding them at once to Steventon & Portsmouth—not having an idea of his leaving Town before to day;—by your account however he was gone before my Letter was written. The only evil is the delay, nothing more can be done till his return. Tell James & Mary so, with my Love.—For your sake I am as well pleased that it shd be so, as it might be unpleasant to you to be in the Neighbourhood at the first burst of the business.—The Advertisement is in our paper to day for the first time;—18s—He shall ask £1- 1- for my two next, & £1- 8 for my stupidest of all.—I shall write to Frank, that he may not think himself neglected. Miss Benn dined with us on the very day of the Books coming, & in the eveng we set fairly at it & read half the 1st vol. to her—prefacing that having intelligence from Henry that such a work wd soon appear we had desired him to send it whenever it came out—& I beleive it passed with her unsuspected.—She was amused, poor soul! that she cd not help you know, with two such people to lead the way; but she really does seem to admire Elizabeth. I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, & how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know.—There are a few Typical errors—& a “said he” or a “said she” would sometimes make the Dialogue more immediately clear—but “I do not write for such dull Elves”

Title page from the first edition of the first volume of Pride and Prejudice. Source: Creative Commons

“As have not a great deal of Ingenuity themselves.”—The 2d vol. is shorter than I cd wish—but the difference is not so much in reality as in look, there being a larger proportion of Narrative in that part. I have lopt & cropt so successfully however that I imagine it must be rather shorter than S. & S. altogether.—Now I will try to write of something else;—it shall be a complete change of subject—Ordination. I am glad to find your enquiries have ended so well.—If you cd discover whether Northamptonshire is a Country of Hedgerows, I shd be glad again.—We admire your Charades excessively, but as yet have guessed only the 1st. The others seem very difficult. There is so much beauty in the Versification however, that the finding them out is but a secondary pleasure.—I grant you that this is a cold day, & am sorry to think how cold you will be through the process of your visit at Manydown. I hope you will wear your China Crape. Poor wretch! I can see you shivering away, with your miserable feeling feet.—What a vile Character Mr Digweed turns out, quite beyond anything & everything;—instead of going to Steventon they are to have a Dinnerparty next tuesday!—I am sorry to say that I could not eat a Mincepie at Mr Papillon’s; I was rather head-achey that day, & cd not venture on anything sweet except Jelly; but that was excellent.—There were no stewed pears, but Miss Benn had some almonds & raisins.—By the bye, she desired to be kindly remembered to you when I wrote last, & I forgot it.—Betsy sends her Duty to you & hopes you are well, & her Love to Miss Caroline & hopes she has got rid of her Cough. It was such a pleasure to her to think her Oranges were so well timed, that I dare say she was rather glad to hear of the Cough.

[Second leaf of letter missing; postscript upside down at top of p.1]

Since I wrote this Letter we have been visited by Mrs Digweed, her Sister & Miss Benn. I gave Mrs D. her little parcel, which she opened here & seemed much pleased with—& she desired me to make her best Thanks &c. to Miss Lloyd for it.—Martha may guess how full of wonder & gratitude she was.

[Miss Austen
Steventon]

Source: Letters of Note

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[Text] Jane Austen On The Release Of Pride And Prejudice appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHF_w0gkyiI

Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist and professor, and is best known for his first novel Things Fall Apart. In this video, Achebe discusses what led him to write Things Fall Apart, saying: “I knew that something needed to be done. That was, my place in the world. My story. The story of myself. The story of my people. I was already familiar with stories of different people… At some point, I began to miss my own. I think of it in terms of a gap in the bookshelf. Where a book has been taken out, and the gap is there.” Achebe goes on to mention that Things Fall Apart struck a chord not just within Nigeria, but across the world with people who had experienced colonization: “There must be things that are universal in the human story which one can use, one can hit upon in telling your own peculiar story. The local, and the universal.”

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Chinua Achebe On Africa appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz9IHVDrIDc

Kazuo Ishiguro is a Japanese-born British novelist and Man Booker Prize winner. In this video, Ishiguro discusses his writing process. Of being a writer, he says: “What happens when you write a novel is that you discover what things you were only superficially interested in, and what things you are deeply interested in, because during the course of writing the book your kind of interest in certain themes just gets used up… In my first novel a lot of things I thought were themes that I was interested kind of, in this sense, got satisfied in the process of writing about it.”

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Kazuo Ishiguro On His Writing Process appeared first on Witnify.

“You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow…”

When English teacher Ms. Lockwood assigned her students at Xavier High School to correspond with a well-known author on their work and request advice, Kurt Vonnegut was the only writer to respond. Vonnegut wrote the following response in 2006 to Xavier students about a year before he passed away on April 11, 2007:

 “Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Conguista:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow. 

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut”    

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[Text] Vonnegut’s Letter to Students: ‘Practice Any Art…Make Your Soul Grow’ appeared first on Witnify.