Flannery O’Connor said the task of a fiction writer is to deepen the mystery.
Raymond Chandler at twenty-three, writing in surprisingly Chestertonian mode in his essay “Realism and Fairyland," wrote that "the spirit of an age is more essentially mirrored in its fairy-tales than in the most painstaking chronicle of a contemporary diarist.” It's fascinating to me, incidentally, that Raymond Chandler and P. G. Wodehouse went to the same English preparatory school. Both went on to create worlds that are too aesthetically perfect to be counted as realist...
Melanie Rae Thon – “My wise friend Mark Robbins told me that writing is like prayer, ‘the dedicated concentration of your being on that which will help you become the person you know you should be.’”
On a lighter note, here is a review that 7,743 of 7,980 Amazon reviewers found helpful. Tonight (August 20th 2009, 6.30 - 8.30 pm, at Cafe Royale, 800 Post Street, San Francisco) InsideStorytime will try and go all spiritual on you . Jonathon Keats, shown here performing at Kepler's, will read from The Book of the Unknown. Also participating will be Stan Goldberg, Jenesha de Rivera, Andrew Dugas, and Paula Hendricks. Tell us you heard about the event from this blog and we'll waive the customary $3-$5 cover charge.
Wow, this Amazon reviewer (Ari Brouillette) has a following! I really enjoyed his galvanized bucket bit, too.