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Literary Lights

Priscilla Fagan

Welcome to a new monthly column focusing on quotes and perhaps even wisdom from members of the writers' world who have become Literary Lights in their own name. This column will not teach you how to write, but, with any luck, will show you that through practice, self-doubt and dead ends, anything is possible.

Literary Lights will attempt to show you there are no rules or commandments. That one successful writer's opinion on a certain subject might offer an extreme difference of opinion from another. This will not be meant to confuse you, but to show you what works for one writer does not necessarily work for another.

We need teachers. And by reading other writers' novels, poetry, plays and writerly wisdom, we will learn to write in our own voice, style and name. So, let's start off June listening to what three Literary Lights think about their colleagues...and then decide for yourself.

"I've always had a feeling it's dangerous to be friends with a writer. You can end up talking away your books."
—Norman Mailer

"After suggesting [that young writers] look into The Writer's Chapbook I recommend they keep a diary, at least a page a day, and faithfully, and also to get into the habit of letter writing to other writers. The advantages that come with doing this seem obvious."
—George Plimpton

"There are other writers who would persuade you not to go on, that everything is nonsense, that you should kill yourself. They, of course, go on to write another book while you have killed yourself."
—John Gardner

Just to titillate some discussion I'm throwing in one more: a woman writer's POV on her colleagues.

"The fewer writers you know the better."
—Maeve Brennan

Oh there are many more opinions on this subject. I wanted to include Hemingway's but I thought by the time I replaced some words with the word "bleep," there wouldn't have been anything to read.

Until next month, I am once again, my friends...The Eternal Optimist.