Posts by David Benjamin
The sound of love (or maybe just juvenile infatuation)
by David Benjamin “For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been’.” — John Greenleaf Whittier MADISON, Wis. — Lately, I’ve been haunted my the memory of a girl who broke my heart 54 years ago. I suffer these pangs of nostalgia because my car has a compact…
Read MoreWhen to stop reading a book
by David Benjamin It’s not true that reading a book is always time well spent. This only applies to good books. There’s a lot of crap out there. Herewith, a few hints about how to sniff out bad prose before you’ve wasted too much time. Since I became a bibliophile, early in my grammar-school days,……
Read MoreThe closing of the famous mind
by David Benjamin “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility; humility is endless.” — T.S. Eliot MADISON, Wis. — For a writer, humility is a survival strategy. I get reminders of this on a daily basis. The silver lining about being humiliated, often by anonymous strangers, is that the…
Read MoreCold coffee and hot copy
by David Benjamin Even before I thought I’d earned the right to call myself a writer, I had heard more than one teacher or mentor refer to my output as “prolific.” I wrote a lot. I might well have served as an illustration of the theory that an infinite number of monkeys banging away at……
Read MoreBill Faulkner makes an elevator pitch
Every writer, nowadays, has to ponder the prospect—and the odds—of making an “elevator pitch,” for a price, to a jaded literary agent. The element absent from this exercise in authorial speed-dating is a set of criteria by which the agent will judge the worthiness of the author and the appeal of the pitch. by David……
Read MoreThe empty seat
by David Benjamin “I had given up my seat before, but this day, I was especially tired. Tired from my work as a seamstress, and tired from the ache in my heart.” — Rosa Parks CHIGASAKI, Japan — Last week, sitting (thankfully) on the crowded Tokaido Line commuter train between Yokohama and Odawara, I had…
Read MoreOriginalism ad absurdum
by David Benjamin “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three…
Read MoreHope in a pope
by David Benjamin “I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.” — Pope Francis MADISON, Wis.—When Pope Francis made his extraordinary pilgrimage to the Congo and South Sudan…
Read MoreThe souls of white folks
by David Benjamin “… De Crawfishes, honey. Dey bo’d inter de groun’ en kep’ on bo’in twel dey onloost de fountains er de yeth; en de waters squirt out, en riz higher twel de hills wuz kivvered en de creeturs wuz all drowned; en all bekaze dey let on ‘mong deyselves dat dey wuz bigger…
Read MoreWriting in lost wax
How is a novel in progress like an unfinished sculpture in bronze? The similarity lies in the gruntwork that follows a burst of inspiration and the molding of the narrative. by David Benjamin During my Boston days, I made friends with a sculptor from New Hampshire, Allen Taylor, who worked in a technique known as……
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