Happy Deathday, Mr. Hemingway!

On July 2nd, in 1961, American writer Ernest Hemingway was found in his Idaho home, with a self inflicted gunshot wound through the head. He was 61 years old and is remembered today as a brilliant writer, a WWI veteran and an acclaimed journalist. 

Most people tend to focus on Hemingway’s rather low view of women or the fact that he, like so many writers we love, killed himself. The truth, as we see it, is this; Ernest Hemingway documented the world around him. Not unlike the great painter Walter Sickert who boasted that he only painted what he had seen, so we feel it is the same with Hemingway. He wrote what he saw in the vast and adventurous life that he led and in the company he kept. Hemingway used plain but forceful prose, with very few adjectives or adverbs. He wrote crisp, accurate dialogue and exact descriptions of places and things.  Hemingway’s simple style undeniably exerted a powerful influence on American and British fiction in the 20th century.

During the twenties, Hemingway became a member of the group of expatriate Americans in Paris, which greatly influenced his first notable work, The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

Some of our favorite Hemingway novels include For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1952) , The Sun Also Rises and his collection of short stories published in 1932 Death in the Afternoon.

Our ultimate favorite long format piece by Hemingway, is without question A Moveable Feast. It was posthumously published in 1964, and is an autobiographical book based on notebooks he kept in Paris in the 1920s. If you’ve not read it, we are hesitant to say much more about it and encourage every aspiring and working writer alike to READ THIS BOOK!

Two more novels were published after his death — Islands in the Stream (1970) and the unfinished The Garden of Eden (1986). A “must read” for die-hard Hemingway fans.

We have posted this short story before, but we just love it so much, we thought we’d post it again! Our favorite Hemingway short story is only 6 words long and is thought by many to be his greatest work:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Brilliant.

Today we encourage our readers to stay up all night brooding and writing.

Challenge yourselves, write a short story in just six words!

Write on in peace, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.

Happy Deathday Ms. Austen!

On July 18th in 1817, one of England’s best loved female authors died of what is now believed to have been bovine tuberculosis. That darling of British literature was none other than Ms. Jane Austen.

Jane Austen’s name has become synonymous with nineteenth century realism lit, but would you believe this wonderfully talented writer was hardly considered “one of the greats” until the 1940s - many years after her death?!

Her best known, if not her best work, Pride and Prejudice, was also her first. It was written between October 1796 and August 1797, although it was not published until 1813, two years after Sense and Sensibility, which was written 1797 and 1798. In fact, Ms. Austen had a rather hard time initially finding a publisher!! If that is not encouragement for our budding writers out there, we’re not sure what is!

Her novels have been parodied, studied, turned into films and stage productions and flat out imitated hundreds upon hundreds of times! We cannot stress what a huge figure in popular culture, Jane Austen has become. If you have not read her work, we guarantee you have at least seen it parodied on Family Guy… or perhaps you’ve seen the bollywood remake Bride and Prejudice? Either way, you must read some Austen if you’ve not had the pleasure… she really is such a treat! If you are unable to get to your local library, check out this great resource: http://www.austen.com/novels.htm

Today, we hope our readers will pay homage to this wonderful writer by thoroughly observing the relationships around you… remember, no matter how insignificant the
“little details” might seem, Jane Austen would have noticed them!

Write on in peace, Ms. Austen!