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The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

1.1K followers 1.6K following 2.6K posts

A daily podcast about writing and writers that changed things, like minds, the world, etc. https://storyofwriting.com

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · May 15

The Story of Writing podcast rules:

-Talk about writers and writing that made the world better
-Every episode should include women and people of color
-Feminism is equality for all
-Stay woke
-Encourage reading
-Respect short attention spans
-Find joy and share it
#BookSky #History #OTD #Authors

Story of Writing

storyofwriting.com

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 3h

Looks like you woke up Rumi by announcing he would have his taxes audited.
😜

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 6h

It is the birthday of the spiritual philosopher who wrote,
“Through my love for you, I want to express my love for the whole cosmos, the whole of humanity, and all beings.”
The Vietnamese monk and writer Thich Nhat Hanh was born on this day in 1926.
#WriterSky #BookSky #BOTD

In 1966, after he refused to choose sides in the Vietnam conflict, he was expelled from the country. A year later, Martin Luther King, Jr. nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize.

A color photo of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh at the Non Nuoc Pagoda in Soc Son mountain, about 40 miles north of Hanoi, in 2007. Photo: Kham | Reuters
Source: Washington Post

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Reposted by The Story of Writing

George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 @gtconway.bsky.social · 6h

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 6h

Happy Elmore Leonard's birthday to all who celebrate!
Here's a peek into his writer's mind:

Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules on Writing:

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
You’re allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

My most important rule sums up all 10:
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 6h

It is the birthday of the novelist who wrote,
“I spent most of my dough on booze, broads and boats and the rest I wasted.”
U.S. writer Elmore Leonard was born on this day in 1925.
#WriterSky #BookSky #BOTD

His fictional stories were often thrillers that revolved around crime. Many have been adapted into movies, like "Get Shorty" and television shows like "Justified."

A b/w photo portrait of author Elmore Leonard in 1987
Photo credit: John Blanding | The Boston Globe, via Getty Images

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 6h

On this day in 1987 that the AIDS Memorial Quilt was first displayed. It was a response to what was then called the AIDS crisis.
#History #OTD #LGBTQ+ #Compassion #Humanity

The acronym stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. AIDS was the end result of H I V or human immunodeficiency virus. It weakened the immune system and caused lethal infections and cancers. These were painful ways to die. The stigma was a whole other layer of suffering. The virus spread quickly through the gay community and some religious leaders called it a plague sent by god to punish homosexuals. In addition to that, many funeral homes refused to even handle an HIV-positive body. The AIDS Memorial Quilt was a way to remember people who had AIDS and to celebrate their lives.
It patched together the families of those who died. From San Francisco, the quilt traveled to cities across the U.S. and around the world. Families and romantic partners saw the names of the dead and added names of those they loved. The quilt now weighs an estimated 54 tons and it is the largest piece of folk art in the world.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt displayed on the National Mall, October 1996, by James Di Loreto. Smithsonian Institution Archives

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 6h

On this day in 1906, the San Francisco Board of Education told its nearly 100 Japanese students that they could no longer attend public school. Instead, they had to go to the segregated Chinese school.
#History #OTD #Immigration #Xenophobia #Hate #Riots

Board members were responding to the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League. This was a group of business and labor leaders who wanted to end immigration from Japan and Korea. A San Francisco newspaper reporter who attended the exclusion league’s first meeting in 1905 wrote that laborers in attendance were “angrily ranting against the foreign men who were preventing them from owning homes and achieving a middle class life.”
The Japanese American families protested the school board’s decision, but, after seeing no movement from board members, explained the situation to Japanese government officials, who made it an international issue. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt got involved and publicly opposed the San Francisco school board’s decision. Just a year before, Roosevelt had helped negotiate an end to the Japan-Russia War and he noticed that Japan had quickly become a world power–one that he did not want to provoke. In Roosevelt’s state of the union address of December 1906, he criticized the persecution of Japanese immigrants.

Just a month later, on January 3rd, 1907, Roosevelt tried to reduce tensions by hosting a White House gathering of officials from Japan and San Francisco. On May 20th, 1907, members of the Japan and Korea Exclusion League and others started a race riot and violently attacked Japanese Americans. The rioting ended with what came to be known as the Gentlemen’s Agreement: Japanese American students could return to San Francisco public schools but Japan could no longer allow its citizens to come to the U.S. By the end of that year, the anti-immigrant group had grown in membership and scope. They called themselves the Asian Exclusion League and targeted immigrants from Japan, Korea, China, and India. In 1924, the U.S. Congress passed its Immigration Act, which set quotas on European immigration and prohibited all immigrants from Asia. Chinese exclusion ended, in a way, nearly 20 years later. China had become an ally in WW2. So, the U.S. once again allowed immigrants from China, but only 105 people per year.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished the quota system and prohibited discrimination based on race, sex, nationality, or place of birth.

A color lithograph of the violent mobs of white people attacking Japanese Americans in San Francisco on May 20, 1907
Source: Bridgeman Images

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 6h

Bwahaha!

Adam Parkhomenko @adamparkhomenko.bsky.social · 13h

I am deceased

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 20h

Yeah, which is a good indicator of how absolutely f-ed up everything is.

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 20h

Yep.
Homan takes a bag of cash and the DOJ is told to ignore it.
I wonder when Homan will take Saudi money to launch a fact-free antisemitic campaign.
Probably already has.

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 21h

Canary’s reportorial voice is so different from that of any news outlet here in the US.
It’s almost unimaginable that we could see anything like it.
Canary’s piece just cuts through the bullshit.
Admirable.

Reposted by The Story of Writing

Missing The Point @missingthept.bsky.social · 1d

Don't give up hope on the Nobel Peace Prize Mr. President, they still have to count the mail-in ballots.

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

Horrifically true. Our species is violent and predatory.

I wonder if we'll ever find a way past it.

Reposted by The Story of Writing

Real Blue Patriot @realbluepatriot.bsky.social · 1d

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

Writing about scenes of devastation during World War One, a war correspondent sees the peaceful before times in the rubble:

As I looked from the train windows, I soon discovered that I had entered now into the very heart of German ruin and pillage and destructiveness. Pangs of horror attacked me at the sight of those blackened roofless houses, standing lonely and deserted among green, thriving fields. I saw one little farm after another reduced to a heap of blackened ashes, with some lonely animals gazing terrified into space. Sometimes just one wall would be standing of what was once a home, sometimes only the front of the house had been blown out by shells, and you could see right inside,—see the rooms spread out before you like a panorama, see the children's toys and frocks lying about, and the pots and pans, even the remains of dinner still on the table, and all the homely little things that made you feel so intensely the difference between this chill, deathly desolation and the happy domestic life that had gone on in such peaceful streams before the Huns set their faces toward Belgium.

–Louise Mack, A Woman's Experiences in the Great War, 1915

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

It's the birthday of the musician who sang,
“There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes. Jesus Christ died for nothin I suppose.”

Singer-songwriter, guitarist, and part bard, part jester for the confused and dispossessed everyguy, John Prine was born on this day in 1946.
#MusicSky #BOTD

A black-and-white photo portrait of John Prine, 1975.
Photo credit: Tom Hill | WireImage
Image source: Pitchfork

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

It is the birthday of the novelist who wrote,
“Surprising yourself is a big thing for me—to go somewhere that I don’t even know I’m going.”

Lily Tuck was born on this day in 1938. Her book "The News from Paraguay" won the 2004 National Book Award for Fiction.
#WriterSky #BookSky #BOTD

A b/w photo portrait of Lily Tuck, dressed in floral-printed robes and sitting on a chair.
Photo credit: Marion Ettlinger
Image source: Getty Images

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

It is the birthday of the dramatist who wrote,
“It’s very difficult to feel contempt for others when you see yourself in the mirror.”
English playwright and Nobel laureate Harold Pinter was born on this day in 1930.
#WriterSky #BookSky #Drama #History #BOTD

He was awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature for his work that, in the words of the Nobel committee, “uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms.”

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

It is the birthday in 1870 of Australian journalist and poet Louise Mack. She wrote novels, poetry, and was one of the first women war reporters. Mack sent dispatches to Australian newspapers from the front lines of World War One.
#WriterSky #BookSky #Journalist #History #BOTD

A b/w photo portrait of Louis Mack, circa 1890

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Reposted by The Story of Writing

Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.bsky.social · 1d

Congratulations to Maria Corina Machado, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize - her incredible optimism has already changed her country. I spoke to her, and wrote about her, at the beginning of this year:
www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

The ‘Anthropological Change’ Happening in Venezuela

Maduro is still in place, but a pro-democracy movement is transforming the beleaguered country.

www.theatlantic.com

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

On this day in 1973, Spiro Agnew resigned as U.S. vice president. An investigation found evidence that he took bribes and kickbacks while working in Maryland state government, during his term as Governor, and when he was Vice President of the U.S. under Richard Nixon.
#History #OTD #Corruption

Soon after Agnew’s resignation, he was disbarred as an attorney and became a business consultant to clients including the murderous dictators Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Nicolae Ceaușescu of Romania. In 1980, Agnew turned to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia for financial support. In exchange for Saudi money, Agnew promised to launch a fact-free, antiSemitic campaign against Jewish people.
Around this time, Maryland called on Agnew to repay the state more than $250,000 for the bribes he took as a public employee. Agnew appealed the ruling, twice, before finally paying back the state in 1983. A few years later, Agnew asked if his repayment of the bribes could be treated as tax-deductible. That request was denied.

Spiro Agnew was, “a flat-out, knee-crawling thug with the morals of a weasel on speed.”

–Hunter S. Thompson

A drawn comic of Apiro Agnew
Source: Cartoon Stock

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

Want.

Photo of a man wearing a t-shirt that reads:
I was going to be a trump voter for halloween but my head wouldn't fit up my ass

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

I love this!
And I love the Cornish way of working and having tea.
Though I suggest you increase tea time and work much less.

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

New York is doing its fall thing again.

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 2d

Happy Birthday!

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