Happy Deathday, Mr. Hughes!

On this day, in 1967, American writer and social-activist, Langston Hughes died of prostate cancer at the age of 65.

Hughes is widely considered to be one of the most important black writers of the 20th century.

In 1926 he published “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” in The Nation, an essay that would influence the Harlem Renaissance for years to come.

Poetry, plays, short stories, nonfiction and memoirs… Hughes wrote it all. One of our favorite poems by Mr. Hughes will always be “A Negro Speaks of Rivers”. Hughes was speaking specifically of the Kaw River, which figures heavily in recollections of his youth, spent in Lawrence, Kansas. 

Hughes strongly believed that “black art” should represent the experiences and culture of the black “folk.” His work was infused with blues and jazz culture and reflected the soul of the urban working class at that time. Some of his more famous writing associated with the Harlem Renaissance include the collections of poems, The Weary Blues (1926) and Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927); the novel Not Without Laughter (1930);  and a personal favorite of ours, a collection of short stories called The Ways of White Folks (1934).

His influence, even today, upon not only “black art” but on the whole of politically charged writers and artists, is undeniable.

Today, think about your culture… your roots. Because in the end, it’s not really about whether you’re black or white anymore… (or at least, it shouldn’t be) … it’s about what you, as a voice of your generation, have to say about social injustice across the world… it’s about what you have to say about your own identity and how it fits into the environment and time in which we live now. Write for your people today… whoever they may be.

Write on in Peace, Mr. Hughes!

A Day in Lowell with Kerouac’s Ghost

One of our long time contributors, Lucas Lammott, recently visited Lowell, Massachusetts, which is the hometown of Jack Kerouac. We cannot think of a better way to ring in the New Year! He took some great snaps, which he allowed us to repost here. Enjoy!

Kerouac was born on 9 Lupine Road in the West Centralville section of Lowell Massachusetts, 2nd floor.

Lowell High School where JK was a football star that got him a scholarship to Columbia University.

Jack Kerouac later referred to 34 Beaulieu Street as “sad Beaulieu”. The Kirouack family was living there in 1926 when Jack’s big brother Gerard died of rheumatic fever at the age of nine.

The grave site of Jean-Louis “Jack” Lebris de Kerouac

Late afternoon rest stop at Brew’d Awakening Coffeehaus downtown Lowell. If you ever get a chance to visit Lowell, you should! It is an eerie place… rich in culture, history and… ghostly inspiration.  And if you live in Boston… you have no excuse not to go spend a day in Lowell. Thanks, Lucas, for sharing your day with us!

Two Deathdays!

Firstly, we would like to apologize for our absence. Been a busy month for all of us.

But we are back with much vigor today! Two deathdays to celebrate!

On March 31st two English writers passed on; Charlotte Brontë in 1855 and John Donne in 1631. Both died relatively young. Charlotte died at only 38 years old and Donne at the age of 59.

If you’d like a little bio information on these two, we recommend a quick glance at our post from last year. Ms. Brontë, of course, is most remembered for her novel , Jane Eyre. And Mr. Donne, who we might add is one of our favorite poets, is best remembered for his sonnets and satirical humor. We did find an interesting site which features John Donne’s work, and we encourage those of you who enjoy him or may not be terribly familiar with him, to check it out!

Today, keep these two writers in mind as you work and read. You never know… perhaps the literary world is ready for a mashup of the metaphysical and the symbolic!

Write on in peace, Mr. Donne and Ms. Brontë!

Happy Deathday Mr. White!

On October 1st in 1985, beloved children’s author E.B. White died at the age of 86. Sadly, the aged writer had been stricken with Alzheimer’s disease.

White is best remembered for such classics as Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little.  Among writers he also best known for updating The Elements of Style, a standard for grammar and writing originally published by William Strunk in 1918.(We greatly thank him for that!)

A lesser known work by White that we all have enjoyed in the past is The Second Tree From the Corner which was published in 1954. If you are a fan of White’s style, you will undoubtedly enjoy this book!His poems are also worth mentioning and can be found at your local library in a collection called “The Lady is Cold: Poems by E.B.W.”

Today, we encourage our readers to find their inner child, sit down with a cup of cocoa and crack open Stuart Little for a little romp through childhood’s memory lanes!

Write on in peace, Mr. White!

Happy Deathday Mr. Melville!

On this day in 1891, Moby Dick writer Herman Melville died at the age of 72.

While Melville will always be legendary for his epic novel, Moby Dick, we feel it is important to point out some of his other work which is perhaps more obscure. If you’ve never read his early work, Omoo, A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas, is a great one! It was published before Moby Dick in 1847. Another intriguing bit of writing came after Moby Dick in 1866, when Melville published a volume of poetry called Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.

His writings are extensive and often draw from personal experiences, which make reading them all the more interesting. Melville was a contemporary of Washington Irivng, Edgar Allan Poe and was said to be an intimate friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

FUN FACT: In 2010 a group of Moby Dick fans who happened to be paleontologists announced that they would be naming a new species of extinct giant sperm whale, which they had discovered fossilized, Livyatan melvillei, in honor of the famous author. 

Today, we encourage you all to call us Ishmael and make an attempt at your very own “big fish tale”.

Write on in peace, Mr. Melville!

Happy Deathday Mr. Wolfe!

On September 15th of 1938, novelist Thomas Wolfe died of tuberculosis at only 37 years old.

Wolfe only wrote four novels, a book of his memoirs and a handful of short stories. But don’t be fooled… those four are packed with more impressionistic, sophisticated and sensitive prose than some authors are able to convey in a lifetime!

Wolfe is best known for his work Look Homeward, Angel but our favorite is The Story of a Novel, which was published in 1936. This memoir documents Wolfe’s working relationship with his editor, Maxwell Perkins, who worked at Scribner’s. Perkins also worked with Hemingway and Fitzgerald. It is a fascinating window into the world of a writer in the 1930s and a must read for all lovers of that era.

Though Wolfe received great acclaim during his life, he was also published posthumously; Web and the Rock was published in 1939 , followed by a collection of short stories in 1941, entitled The Hills Beyond.It is said that Faulkner, a contemporary of Wolfe, called him “their generation’s best writer” and it cannot be mistaken that Thomas Wolfe was incredibly influential to writers like Ray Bradbury and Jack Kerouac. Upon his death, The New York Times wrote of him:

“His was one of the most confident young voices in contemporary American literature, a vibrant, full-toned voice which it is hard to believe could be so suddenly stilled. The stamp of genius was upon him, though it was an undisciplined and unpredictable genius…. There was within him an unspent energy, an untiring force, an unappeasable hunger for life and for expression which might have carried him to the heights and might equally have torn him down”

Today, we hope our readers will remember Thomas Wolfe by being “undisciplined” and “unpredictable” geniuses! See if you can tap into that “unspent energy”!

Write on in peace, Mr. Wolfe!

Starting off the Month with a BANG!

Well, when it rains it pours. ;) We have three deathdays to celebrate with you all today.

On this day in 1955, American poet Wallace Stevens died of stomach cancer.

Stevens was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1955 for a collection of his work and received the National Book Award for Poetry in 1951 and 1954. His collections are extensive and he most definitely a favorite here at Dead Writers. If you re unfamiliar with this poet, check out this link for yourself and be sure to ask your local librarian about him!

Also on this day, in 1988, short story writer Raymond Carver died of lung cancer at age 50.

Carver was part of the Minimalism and “Dirty Realism” movements of literature. His stories were simple like Hemingway’s but as raw and darkly haunting as Kafka’s. Our favorite collection of poetry by Carver is In Marine Light, which was published in 1988. A collection of his short stories were put together as a tie in with the 1993 Robert Altman film entitled “Short Cuts”. The film was inspired by Carver’s stories. Check it out; it ‘s a fascinating compilation.

Last but certainly not least on our list of deathdays, William S. Burroughs also died on this day in 1997 of heart failure. He was 83 years old.

Burroughs is best remembered for his cult classic novel Naked Lunch, which was published in 1959. The book, if you’ve never read it, is a series of vignettes which follow many of Burroughs’ own experiences with drug addiction and taboo fantasies. It’s definitely a wild ride, but not one to be missed if you enjoy the genre. In addition to Naked Lunch, Burroughs wrote a number of poems and books and was a part of the postmodern movement.  His influence on popular culture is felt even today. For more information on Burroughs, follow this link.

This concludes our post for August 2nd! We hope you will all honor these three wonderfully talented writers today!

Write on in peace, Messrs Stevens, Carver and Burroughs!

Tall Order Today…

Today is the deathday of several authors/poets that we would like to aknowledge!

We’ll start off by wishing François-Marie Arouet, or Voltaire as he is most commonly called, a very happy deathday! Voltaire, the famous French philosopher and wit, died on this day in 1778 at the age of 83! He is most remembered for his infamous criticisms of the church, his poetry and plays, and a plethora of books, most notably Candide.

Secondly, we would like to wish Mr. Christopher Marlowe and happy deathday! Marlowe, the English playwright that many have thought to have been the true author of a handful of Shakespeare’s plays (see our facebook discussion), died on this day in 1593.

Marlowe, a contemporary of William Shakespeare, was no where near as prolific a writer as Shakespeare, but was quite the dramatist in his own right, with such plays as Doctor Faustus and Dido, Queen of Carthage. It has long been suspected that his death was an assassination…but that’s a whole other story… long story short he was an atheist and quite possibly a homosexual in Elizabethan England. 

On this very day in 1744 English poet and satirist Alexander Pope died as well. He is best known for his work The Rape of the Lock, his excellent translation of The Odyssey and his essays.

Today is also the deathday of Harlem Renaissance writer Gwendolyn Bennett who died  on this day in 1981. She is best remembered for her poetry and her literary contributions to Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life. Bennett was an assistant to the editor and columnist for this journal and also co-founded the literary journal Fire!!  which brought her into the Harlem arts circle. If you are interested in the literature of the Harlem Renaissance, Bennett is a poet you do not want to miss out on.

Phew… almost done…

Last but not least, novelist Mark Harris (Bang the Drum Slowly) and poet William Meredith (won the Pulitzer prize in 1988 for Partial Accounts) both died on this die in 2007. Meredith died of respiratory failure while Harris died from complications following pneumonia.

While these two writers wrote from opposite ends of the spectrum, we always find it interesting when two writers die on the same day of the same year.

All six of these writers came from different backgrounds and for the most part different time periods and cultures. But the one thing they all have in common, aside from the shared deathday, is that they will all be remembered for their unique literary contributions to this ever changing world. Let us never forget this wonderfully diverse deathday!

Enjoy the weekend and please remember to raise six glasses today in remembrance of these writers.

Write on in peace, Mrs. Bennett and Messrs. Voltaire, Marlowe, Pope, Meredith and Harris!

Happy Deathday Charlie!

Charles Bukowski died of leukemia on this day in 1994. He was 73 years old.

Bukowski often wrote about Los Angeles and documented many a drunken night in the form of languid and raw poetry. One critic described Bukowski’s fiction as “a detailed depiction of a certain taboo male fantasy: the uninhibited bachelor, slobby, anti-social and utterly free”.

Some of our favorite Bukowski collections of poetry include “The Only Thing That Matters is How Well You Walk Through the Fire” and “Slouching Towards Nirvana”. Bukowski also wrote several novels, including “Factotum” and “Barfly” which were both made into films.

What we love most about Bukowski though is his sense of humor. Though sometimes dark, crass or self deprecating, his observations are honest. Even in death, he continues to warn, inspire and discourage those who aspire to follow in his drunken footsteps…

His headstone reads:

“Don’t Try”

In a 1963 letter to John William Corrington, Bukowski explained this statement:

Somebody at one of these places […] asked me: “What do you do? How do you write, create?” You don’t, I told them. You don’t try. That’s very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It’s like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it.

We encourage our readers to do just that. Today… “don’t try”.

Mr. Bukowski- your unique voice and sour wit is sorely missed.

Write on in peace!

Happy Deathday Mr. Williams!

27 years ago today Tennessee Williams died from what appeared to be an overdose. Though his funeral was not until March 3rd, we’d like to celebrate the life, writing and death of a tremendous talent who changed American drama forever.

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 Tennessee Williams struggled his whole life with alcohol and depression, (what writer does’t?) he still managed to leave his mark. And… wouldn’t ya know it…26 years after his death, in 2009, he was inducted into the Poet’s Corner at St. John the Divine Episcopalian Church!

According to Wikipedia:

The ceremony seemed geared to elevate the poet and playwright into the pantheon of great English Language writers, including William Faulkner and William Shakespeare. The purpose of the ceremony seemed to be a prayer for the poets fire to continually burn on Earth, as it would in heaven, and included elements choral music, tributes, readings, personal anecdotes from friends, and overall a tone and deliberate selections of choral music and prayer that offered acceptance and forgiveness which seemed to address certain prejudices which may have arisen against the poet in his lifetime so that the man’s work could, going forward, be more fully accepted and explored.

At the time of his death, Williams had been working on a final play entitled “In Masks Outrageous and Austere”. It has been rumored that the play may be heading to Broadway at some point!

Anyway… we hope you will light a few candles, drink a few shots and read a little Streetcar today in remembrance of this brilliant American writer.

Tennessee Williams, write on in peace!