Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 11h

"Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry is own weight, this is a frightening prospect."
Eleanor Roosevelt, born on this day in 1884

13 28

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 21h

"I don't believe in writer's block or waiting for inspiration. If you're a writer, you sit down and write."
Elmore Leonard, born on this day in 1925

3 8

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 21h

“Write your stories as you would tell them to people whose attention you want to catch. If you ramble, they get bored. The same is true with writing."
The “Indianapolis Times” ceased publication on this day in 1965
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2017/04/writ...

Writing Advice from the Indianapolis Times

From its start in 1888 until it ceased publication on October 11, 1965, the Indianapolis Times produced "lively and sometimes courageous jo...

rayboomhower.blogspot.com

1 3

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 1d

“Halberstam . . . was and is a tough competitor of mine (in view of his reporting here and his competitive book) with whom I have never been on friendly terms. If he says anything nice it will be only to show he is a good sport, but this is fairly unlikely.”
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2022/08/crea...

Creating "The New Face of War": Malcolm Browne and the Bobbs-Merrill Company

During its heyday, the Bobbs-Merrill Company of Indianapolis stood as the largest publishing house located west of the Allegheny Mountains,...

rayboomhower.blogspot.com

2

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 1d

“I assure you that I will do everything within my power not only to get it printed, but to get it ‘pushed’!”
Did you know? Booth Tarkington played a key role in helping May Wright Sewall get her book about her spiritualist experiences published.
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2020/04/may-...

"The Last Enemy is Destroyed": May Wright Sewall and Spiritualism

In the summer of 1918 Booth Tarkington , enjoying the season at his home in Kennebunkport, Maine , received in the mail an invitation from a...

rayboomhower.blogspot.com

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 1d

"I say, play your own way. Don’t play what the public wants. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you’re doing even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years."
Thelonious Monk, born on this day in 1917

3 7

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 1d

“There is only one choice, honorable and immediate surrender or complete destruction.”
OTD in 1944 in Aachen, Germany, war correspondent Richard Tregaskis watched as U.S. forces set off to deliver a surrender ultimatum to the German commander
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2023/06/char...

Charlemagne’s City: Richard Tregaskis Reporting from Aachen

Peering through the flickering candlelight that offered the only illumination in a massive pillbox that helped make up part of the Siegfried...

rayboomhower.blogspot.com

3

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 1d

Vonnegut was a big fan of Mary Donovan's husband, labor organizer and activist Powers Hapgood.

2

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 1d

“I love writing. I’m just nuts on writing. Just give me an inkpot and a paper and a pen, and away I go.”
Janet Flanner's first "Letter from Paris" column appeared in "The New Yorker" on this day in 1925
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-le...

A Letter from Paris: Janet Flanner and The New Yorker

As a young girl growing up as part of one of Indianapolis’s leading families, Janet Flanner had a path in life already set for her by her m...

rayboomhower.blogspot.com

1 1

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 1d

“Have you not succeeded? Continue! Have you succeeded? Continue!”
Fridtjof Nansen, born on this day in 1861

2

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

For John Lennon's birthday (OTD 1940), here's an article I did for the "Indiana Daily Student" about a memorial service for him following his murder in December 1980. I remember the piece as one of the best I produced during my three years at the student newspaper.

2 5

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

Did you know? In addition to winning two Pulitzer Prizes for his fiction, Hoosier author Booth Tarkington served a term in office as an Indiana legislator--a good one at that.
rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2019/07/penr...

Penrod and Politics: Booth Tarkington in the Indiana Legislature

Marion County voters faced a dizzying array of choices in the March 1902 Republican primary. Nineteen GOP candidates were vying for the se...

rayboomhower.blogspot.com

3

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

I will be part of a panel talking about Hoosier author Booth Tarkington this Saturday as part of the @indianahumanities.bsky.social's Proof Midwest Literary Fest.
indianahumanities.org/event/the-le...

The Legacies of Booth Tarkington - Indiana Humanities

Booth Tarkington is one of just four authors to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction twice, putting him in a category with William Faulkner, John Updike, and Colson Whitehead. However,...

indianahumanities.org

2 8

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

"If a demonstration must be planned, a speech delivered, a parade led, a picket line established, and the authorities were frowning on the act, it was Mary Donovan who accomplished it. She feared neither the policeman’s club, the trooper’s horse, nor the jailer’s cell.”

1 4

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

During a Sacco and Vanzetti demonstration at Boston Common, a man came up to her, identified himself as a policeman, and said he wanted to be where the trouble was. "Stick with me brother," Donovan told him, "and you'll be where the trouble is."

1 5

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

Donovan, who married labor organizer Powers Hapgood, was heavily involved in trying to save the lives of anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, winning, from Upton Sinclair, the designation of being the "Irish ex-Catholic Joan of Arc of the labor movement."

1 1 4

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

"We were always poor," she recalled of her childhood. "I didn't have to 'get interested' in the underdog--I was one myself."

1 1 4

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

Here's to one of this country's original antifa activists, Mary Donovan Hapgood, the first woman to run for governor in Massachusetts (1928) and Indiana (1940), both times as the candidate of the Socialist Party.

2 23 130

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

“You write for the people in high school who ignored you. We all do.”
Carolyn Kizer

1

Reposted by Ray E. Boomhower

Emily Hopkins is reporting for Mirror Indy @emilyhopkins.bsky.social · 2d

Heartland Film Festival AND Proof: A Midwest Lit Fest? Truly a blessed month for the arts in Indy.

mirrorindy.org/heartland-in...

What to watch at Heartland International Festival

The film festival will screen local and national movies and documentaries Oct. 9-19, including big names like Will Ferrell, America Ferrera and Natalie Portman.

mirrorindy.org

4 5

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

On this day in 2010 Scott Russell Sanders (center) won the national award in the Indiana Authors Award. Greg Schwipps (right), from Milan, received the emerging author award. And I was fortunate enough to be named the regional honoree. Quite a day.

4

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

"A certain combination of incompetence and indifference can cause almost as much suffering as the most acute malevolence."
Bruce Catton

3

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

“Our masks, always in peril of smearing or cracking,
In need of continuous check in the mirror or silverware,
Keep us in thrall to ourselves, concerned with our surfaces."
Carolyn Kizer, who died on this day in 2014

1 1

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 2d

"Even the most painstaking history is a bridge across an eternal mystery."
Bruce Catton, born on this day in 1899

1 4

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 3d

"The constitution does not provide for first and second class citizens."
Wendell Willkie

3