Happy Deathday Mr. Williams!

On February 25th in 1983, American playwright Tennessee Williams died at the age of 71 from a choking accident, involving the cap from an eye drop bottle. (Though- it was indicated that intoxication was a factor in his death).

Williams won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his most recognized work “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 1948. He won the Pulitzer again in 1955 for “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”. He was awarded the Tony Award for best play for his 1952 play “The Rose Tattoo”. And in 1980 he was even presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter!

Though Williams, like many writers, suffered with the vice of drinking and struggled with depression, the impact he had on American drama is invaluable and will never be forgotten. “The Glass Menagerie”, published in 1945, remains one of our very favorite plays to this day.

In 2009, Williams was inducted into the Poet’s Corner at St. John the Divine Episcopalian Church! If you’d like to read a little bit about that, just click the picture of his gravestone below.

You may notice something interesting about the post we have linked to the picture above…did you notice? That was our very first “deathday” post here at DWC!

Today, have a drink… hell… have two or three… (but be responsible), put your feet up, crack open some Tennessee Williams and get lost in the Southern Gothic recesses of your mind. Succumb to the drama.

Write on in peace, Mr. Williams!

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.

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. Hemingway’s lucid prose and sparse dialogue undeniably exerted a powerful influence on American and British fiction in the 20th century. Some of our favorite Hemingway novels include For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises and his collection of short stories published in 1932 Death in the Afternoon.

Love him or hate him, you cannot deny his brilliance! Our favorite Hemingway short story is only 6 words long and is said to be akknowledged by many to be his greatest work:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

What did we tell you? Brilliant!

Today we encourage our readers to stay up all night brooding, writing and (responsibly) drinking. Challenge yourselves, write a short story in just six words!

Write on in peace, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.

Happy Deathday Mr. Kafka!

On June 3rd, in the year 1924, the greatest icon of dark existentialist and absurdist literature passed away from starvation as a result of tuberculosis.

Best known for his short story “The Metamorphosis”, Kafka often explored themes of isolation, alienation, and authoritarian oppression.  Some of our favorite works by Kafka include  “In the Penal Colony”, “The Hunger Artist”, and the novels The Trial, The Castle, and the unfinished Amerika.

His childhood is thought to have been an unhappy one and it is well documented that Kafka had an often tumultuous relationship with his father, which would rear it’s head in much of his writing. In fact, in Letter to His Father ( published in 1919) he stated: “My writing was all about you; all I did there, after all, was to bemoan what I could not bemoan upon your breast. It was an intentionally long-drawn-out leave-taking from you.”

Throughout his life, Franz Kafka was marked by extreme sexual neurosis and severe depression. Sound familiar? In many ways, we feel that Kafka is not only to writing what Dali was to painting, but he is the ultimate “troubled artist”… and we love him for it.

So- today, we encourage our readers to embrace their inner insect and join us in wishing Franz Kafka a glorious deathday!

Write on in peace, Mr. Kafka!