Gina's Interview Series: Famous People From Around the World
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Posted on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 5:07 PM
L.David Ryals ....... ........is a freelance writer and sometime English
teacher living in New York City. He is a graduate of Long Island University's
Master of Fine Arts program in English and Writing. His poem "Gentle
Fire" was published in the September 2005 issue of Essence Magazine. Mr.
Ryals is passionate about Cancer awareness; Adult Basic Education and Literacy.
He leverages his considerable talents in the advance of several causes close to
his heart. Subsequent to his first surgery, Mr. Ryals underwent a second thyroid
surgery. Mr. Ryals is a thyroid cancer survivor.
Where are you from?
I was born and
raised in The Bronx, New York. I am a product of New York City's public school
system. I've emerged pretty much unscathed.
What is your
genre/writing style?
I write poems,
essays and short-stories. I notice, though, that I tend to write more essays.
Essays allow me to reveal more of myself than the poems or short-stories.
When did you know
you wanted to become a writer?
I had the idea
about it when I was about ten years old. My mother is a writer, too. I would
watch her do her writing and so, the ground work of it was laid early. Mostly
anything literary came easily to me. But, the idea of it being an actual in the
world sort of thing happened when I went to college. In all of my reading about
the famous writers I liked, I noticed that they found a place to go and
practice their craft. College was that place for me.
I went to
Southampton College of Long Island University. It's on the East end of Long
Island. The place famously known as "The Hamptons". I went there
because it was far enough away from the city and the college had a Summer's
Writer's conference where you got to study under and meet famous authors. I had
managed to find the place where writing and the nuts and bolts of it would be
made real. Today, Southampton College is no more. It is now known as Stony
Brook Southampton. The writing program has been retained and expanded.
Obviously, I am a very "be true to your school type of guy."
What is your inspiration for writing?
For my writing, I try
to use everything. That is, I watch the news, read the papers and just try to
pay attention to what's going on around me. I people watch and listen in on
conversations. I can be shameless. Not intrusive, mind you. But, still,
shameless. Not being able to write is less about a lack of material and more
about not knowing how to approach the subject. Should this be a poem? Should it
be a short-story or an essay? Should it even be written by me?
Very recently, I found a way to "use everything" in my own life. After undergoing a second thyroid surgery, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. It's a diagnosis that's an earth shaker, to be sure. I decided to use my training as a writer to help me through it. Writing help me feel as if I had a measure of control over my situation. And, it allowed me to help people along the way.
Sometimes, writer's fall into the "Everybody But Me" syndrome. That is, everybody, but me has a more interesting life or are doing more interesting things. Do your best to resist that mindset. Being able to look at your life and find what makes it interesting, what makes you interesting, forces you to sift the particulars and find the universal in your situation.
Are you first generation American? There's a story there. Are you the eldest child and feeling the burden of family expectations? Again, there's a story there. A lot of times, the story that's worth telling isn't the story that you think you know. It's what lies in the spaces of the story that you think you know all too well.
Why is grandma always so mean? Did you know that in the "old country" she was a town elder; came from old money and used her influence, judiciously? When she came to America, she had to start over and work two jobs; learn the language and endure the taunts of people who assumed she was stupid because she didn't speak "American". My point is, when you go looking, you will trip over stories that are worth telling. Sometimes, the best stories to tell are the ones closest to home.
Any suggestions for
a new writer?
I would advise a new writer to read as widely as possible. Do
your best to gain an international perspective. Figure out why you like
something and the areas in which it works or doesn't work as a piece of
writing. I mean this for any prose that you come across. Adverts on the subway?
Yep. Airport novels? Absolutely. In-flight magazines? They are gold mines of
the power of persuasion. Critique and learn from everything you read and hear.
Why was that magazine article unpersuasive? Why didn't that car commercial have
you out the door and to the dealership? If you're aware of what moves and
motivates you, you can move and motivate someone else or millions of someones.
Who is your
favorite author? Why?
I am a fan of Raymond Carver. in his writing, he made the
mundane and everyday accessible. Sometimes, as writers we have the idea that
the day-to-day things are to be avoided. Carver showed that you can take hum
drum and show a microcosm of humanity. I like Flannery O'Connor for that
quality, too. A fairly decent writer can paint a scene and make you believe it.
The exceptional writers, like Carver and O'Connor, will hand you back your life
revealing areas of pathos, humor and horror. You come away from their stories
and wonder how much of the world aren't I seeing?
Do you have a
favorite quotation?
I like this retread of a Benjamin Franklin quote: "Who
is so wise as to learn from the mistakes of others?" This goes back to my
suggestion to read everything that you can and to read internationally. I used
to tell my students that if they read widely enough, they could avoid all sorts
of heartbreak and calamity. I would ask them, "Can you learn from the
mistakes of your parents and friends and everyone you know? Everyone's life has
a lesson to teach."
Where do you see yourself in five years as a writer?
I have
the desire for the writing trifecta: The Pulitzers in Essay writing, Poetry and
Short-story writing. Aim high, I say! I expect that I will have completed a
doctorate in English and Writing. I enjoy teaching and am looking forward to
getting back to it. Also, for those of you considering a graduate writing
program: Remember, that a program like that offers you the gift of time. It'll
be two or three years when you'll be able to focus and improve your writing and
develop friendships and rivalries with people who share your passion to write.
Choose a place that makes you happy; a place where you can see yourself waking
up and spending hours of your life with the same people and with professors you
respect and who respect you.
Read L. David's articles and more ...
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Posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 9:07 AM
Richard Carreño resides in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA........... a writer, bookseller, and an educator, formerly a
lecturer of American literature and English composition at
several universities in the United Kingdom and in the United States. He
is editor of The Philadelphia Junto and a
partner in the on-line bookshop, @philabooks|booksellers and WritersClearinghousePress.
He specializes in art, architectural, and cultural reporting and criticism.
In 1996, Carreño was a visiting scholar at Cambridge
University and, in 1998, an educational consultant to the U.S. Agency
for International Development (A.I.D.) in Ukraine. Carreño was based in
the late 1990s in London, working as a media consultant, writer, and editor for
Writers Clearinghouse, a firm he founded in 1978 in Fabyan, CT. He travelled
widely in Europe and the Mid-East. Returning to the United States in 1999,
he held a short-term, mid-career assignment as a James H. Ottaway Sr. Fellow at
the American Press Institute, Washington.
He is the recipient of an honors citation from the
Lowell Mellett Fund for a Free and Responsible Press, Washington, for his work
as a media critic; a first place award from the New England Scholastic Press
Association; and a Friends of The Bahamas Essay Award, among others.
In 1999, Carreño founded @philabooks|booksellers in
partnership with late father, Ralph J. Carreño of Boston. The on-line bookshop
specializes in books about The New Yorker and its authors; men's
fashions; works by and about the Pennsylvania author John O'Hara; and
books by and about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. @philabooks also
sponsors The Philadelphia Book ConneXion, a charity that distributes free
books.
 Carreño was a reporter and editor for many years in the
1970s and 1980s for numerous newspapers, includingThe Boston Globe; The
Hartford Courant; the Telegram & Gazette, Worcester, Massachusetts; and The
News, Southbridge, Massachusetts, where he served as the first news critic and reader
ombudsmen in New England. His free-lance writing has appeared in scores of
regional and national publications in the U.S. and in the U.K.
His work now appears regularly in the Philadelphia Weekly
Press. He also edits The Philadelphia Junto, an on-line blog.
Among his teaching posts were adjunct positions at Johnson
& Wales University, Providence, Rhode Island; the Harvard University Extension
School, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Clark University and Assumption College, both in
Worcester, Massachusetts; and at the Choate-Rosemary Hall School, Wallingford, Connecticut. In
2004, he was an ESL specialist in Spain.
For many years, Carreño operated a family-owned boarding
stable in Connecticut. He is an amateur horsemen,
previously participating in foxhunting in Massachusetts and polo
in Florida and Massachusetts. His interest in equestrianism extends
to book collecting in that area and it being specialty designation of @philabooks. He has amassed a 5,000-title personal library,
including a comprehensive collection of works by and about John O'Hara.
Before moving to the U.K., Carreño served as an elected and
appointed official to several library panels, including the Connecticut
Association of Library Directors; the Connecticut Governor's Conference on
Libraries; and the Thompson, CT, Library Board of Directors. He is a
member of Pen & Pencil Club, Philadelphia; the Cambridge University
Society; and the Mid-Century Society, Philadelphia and London.
Carreño was educated at New York University, where he was a
Regent Scholar and studied under the noted historians North Callahan and John
Tebbel. He obtained undergraduate degrees from the American University, Paris,
France; and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This was followed by
graduate work at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Carreño has also worked and lived in France and
Switzerland. His childhood home was in Nassau, The Bahamas, where is mother,
Marion Berman Carreño, is buried. Carreño is a former resident of Worcester, Massachusetts, and Thompson, Connecticut.....
When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
First time I read The New Yorker as a kid. What is your genre and writing style?
Advocacy first-person journalism. Informal.
Where do you like to write?
In my office.
How do you maintain ideas and thoughts for manuscripts?
Files, Notebooks.
In your opinion, what makes a great writer?
Non-fiction: Kick-Ass Cheeky Honesty Fiction: Universal
Timeless Theme.
What suggestions do you have for first time writers?
Write, proofread, cut, edit, write and do it again an
again.
Do you have a favorite author/poet?
Author: John O'Hara
What are you currently working on?
A biography of Paul Mellon.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Whoa! One day at a time, please
Follow Richard
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Posted on Tuesday, January 03, 2012 3:43 PM
Welcome internationally acclaimed writer and performance poet, Omer Tarin....
When did you first realize you
wanted to be a writer?
There
wasn’t ever a fixed time, when I knew, no sudden epiphany or realization! I
always read and wrote a lot, even as a child, and my imagination was always
working. I used to day-dream a lot, too; and many of my dreams became ‘ideas’
for poems or stories. So I have been writing ever since I can remember, all
sorts of things, and gradually, quite by themselves, things began to fall into
place. I must say my parents, especially father, were very supportive and
encouraging—my father was my earliest literary mentor and guide and he had very
good taste, was an avid reader and had a rather substantial library which he
allowed me full use of. I never remember him saying ‘read this’ or ‘read
that’—it was a true voyage of discovery for me, one day reading (say) Dickens,
and a few days later Gerald Durrell or Robert Frost or selections from various
regional languages and literatures. And then, when I began to write, my father
encouraged me all the more, would often take time out of his busy schedule to
discuss a poem or story I’d written. Later on, I was lucky to go to some of the
best schools in Pakistan, in the old British colonial ‘public school’
tradition, and some of the masters there were absolutely splendid people.
They’d encourage us to ‘do our thing’, whatever inspired or appealed to us, and
always had time to discuss, to critique and guide. Although I write in three
languages, the major part of my writing now is in English and this was
something that my teachers guided me towards initially, and they were also the
first ones to publish some of my work in school and college magazines and
later, to prompt me to write for literary journals and even newspapers and
periodicals. This gave me a great deal of confidence in my writing potential in
my student days.
What’s your genre and style?
I
am essentially a poet. However, I have also written some shorter fiction and
non-fiction prose—some of these writings have only just been made available in
privately printed editions, in the USA/North America. Since I’m also an
academic and research scholar by profession today, in addition to my literary
writings I have also written a fair amount of research: on history, culture and
folklore, Pakistani and South Asian regional literature and art and so on. As a
poet writing in English, in South Asian contexts, I am not, I believe,
restricted to any limitations of style or content. Although most of my poetry
is vers libre, I have experimented and keep on experimenting quite a lot. Even
with forms and styles that are not usually found in English/Western literature.
As a young student, I was deeply influenced by certain mystic, spiritual and
meditative aspects of some of our South Asian literary traditions, for example
such as the works of the Punjabi Sufic poets like Baba Farid, Bulleh Shah,
Waris Shah; and also by the broader ‘Islamic’ Sufi poetic tradition, especially
the classical Persian works of Rumi,
Hafiz and Attar. One of my own early poetic mentors in Pakistan was Taufiq
Rafat, a fine poet who was also an authority on Punjabi poetry and a bold
exponent of the adaptation of a Punjabi idiom into his own English poems. I
guess one way or the other, these ‘influences’ are all to be found in my work.
Do you use real life experiences,
characters, storylines etc, for inspiration?
Yes
and no. ‘Inspiration’ for me isn’t a fixed or systematic thing. It’s something
that just ‘happens’. Sometimes, you are thinking, or in a day-dream or reverie,
or sometimes some person, word, action, some sight or sound or smell becomes
evocative and –lo! I think I do tend to draw upon personal experience in
certain ways, too, in fiction by utilizing certain events or people that I’ve
met or known, and ‘filed away’ as the basis for imagined scenarios and
characters, in due course. In poetry, my ‘experience’ is something different;
something from another source, or part of me altogether. As you might know, I
am also a ‘practicing mystic’ in the Islamic Sufic way, and various forms of
meditation, of ‘connection’ to higher spiritual ‘realities’ are regular parts
of such practice. At times, these experiences, which aren’t really
‘expressible’ in other forms, find their voice in my poetry. At other times,
the subjective condition, that strange half-awake and half-asleep ‘poetic
state’ emerges out of some part of me on its own account and ‘inspires’. I must
add, that for me at least, ‘inspiration’ is seldom direct. I don’t go and sit
by a river or watch a sunset and say “Oh! How lovely! I’m going to write about
this!”. It acts in subtle, elliptical ways. Seeps down into the subconscious
and takes on some strange and often unbelievable shapes and disguises. . .
Where do you like to write?
I
am personally most comfortable writing at my ease in my small study, or work
place at home. For more ‘academic’ type of writing I like to be at my desk and
with my Computer/Word processor in front of me and flanked by all my
paraphernalia like dictionaries and thesauri and reference books etc. When I
write poetry, this can take place anywhere; there are many nights when I wake
up and start to write, and I always keep pen and paper handy. Later on, I take
my ‘draft poem’ to my desk, too, when I start to ‘polish’ it up. This takes me
quite some time, as I like to write and rewrite a poem a number of times, and a
number of ways. I enjoy experimenting like this. One thing I am normally not
able to do, is write outdoors, in proximity to nature—I might take in varied
impressions, sensory perceptions and all, in such surroundings, but for me
these have to be eventually ‘refined’ through a certain process. Was it
Wordsworth who said that poetry was “Emotion recollected in tranquility”? I’m
not sure; but whoever it was, came quite close to expressing how I (a) ‘feel’
and then (b) create, later.
How do you maintain ideas and thoughts
for manuscripts?
Mostly
in diaries that I keep. These are less the standard daily journals than my
general musings, thoughts/ideas and all. Often, during the course of such
writing, I come across good or useful ideas for a future essay or story or
something—not poetry, generally—and when such an idea occurs to me, I jot out a
quick outline how I’d organize it, or do it, and then I flag the outline or
page/s, using my own codes and abbreviations. This makes it easier for me to
return to a particular idea or outline, when I need to. Usually, I don’t
maintain bulky files and odds and ends (although I know some writers who do)
except for my research/academic writing –but for that, I also have other
resources, and people, to assist and help me out. That’s quite a different
sphere of activity for me compared to creative writing.
In your opinion, what makes a
great poet?
To
tell you the truth, it is very difficult to say. Poetry is such a complicated
business, and such a ‘personal’ one, that it’s very hard to pass such facile
judgments! Even with regard to many ‘great’ poets at one time or another, their
‘acceptability’ as great is or might be something entirely to do with certain
popular trends and critical opinion and such things—take Lord Byron, for
example, the quintessential product of a certain time and age; and take Emily
Dickinson by way of comparison, who was quite unknown and unrecognized in her
time, but ‘discovered’ by a later one. Yet, inspite of this, one feels there
are some ‘commonalities’ too, in some truly ‘great, lasting poetry regardless
of where it’s written. As I see it, such poetry ‘reaches out’ to us at many
levels, in many ways, and makes us ‘sing’ within! It whispers fantastic things
into our ears and hearts, and makes us fly and soar away, into certain realms
that we don’t always know exist within us. It also somehow changes us, and
allows us some sort of insights into ourselves and into the world and into many
things that we normally perhaps don’t think about, or feel in any deeper sense
during the course of our routines. It’s a very delicate thread, that binds Rumi
and Shakespeare and Basho and Goethe and Tagore and makes them as one. In a lecture ‘On Poetry’ delivered in 1900,
WB Yeats made that famous albeit ponderous statement that sublime poetry
emerged when , “All sounds, all colors, all forms, …call down among us certain
disembodied powers [which]…we call emotions; and when sound and color and form
are in a musical relation, a beautiful relation to one another, they become one
sound, one color, one form, and evoke an emotion that is made out of their
distinct evocations and yet is one emotion”.
This is as close as one can come to expressing what ‘great poetry’ is.
What suggestions to you have for
first time writers and poets?
I’m
very happy to see so many people, at least, writing nowadays, especially young
people! Even twenty years ago, this wasn’t so common, at least in this part of
the world. Young people, or those young at heart and overflowing with words,
would often be sidetracked or even actively discouraged; and in a way, there’s
a ‘publishing revolution’ that is going on at this time, major changes, which
allow writers access to audiences worldwide and very quickly, too. So, in this
respect, there’s a lot that’s positive for aspiring writers. At the same time,
the basic standards for good writing, for writing that is meaningful and
lasting, remain the same as they ever were. I think that all good writers
automatically start by reading a lot of good literature, or reading a lot,
generally! And this is something that I always advise new writers, please do
read, try to see and note and feel what has been written by the best writers
everywhere, and how they’ve written it. Finally, if you are seriously committed
to writing as a vocation, then just keep on writing, and don’t be discouraged
by negative criticism or sidetracked by quests for fame and fortune. These
things will come too, in good time. But whether they do or not, write, as if
writing was all, and write as well as you possibly can and take time—don’t be
in a hurry. There’s no race going on, and that’s just the illusion of the
‘marketplace’, and if you’re good you’ll get published sooner or later. Just
believe in yourself and put in a lot of hard work.
Follow Omer via these links....
A sample of Omer’s poetry… Two in My Garden
They stand together
The twin stalks
In my backyard,
Sometimes reminders
Of some things not done,
Some weeds not plucked
When it was time to do so;
Why I did not clear the yard
Is not so important now
As why did I want to?
Indeed, I see no petal
Half as nice as those two
That grow together, in their awkward fashion,
And they have some part of me
Where it wouldn't do;
It doesn’t matter anymore, of course,
When other weeds have grown
Along them, only not like them at all,
And choked the petunias
Out of their shallow beds;
And there is some justice
In my garden going to seed,
Then standing tall and together
Once I’ve ceased to tend.
Shandur Polo
Had I seen the ghosts of this place
They would dance their victory dance;
Glorious vale
Cup, chalice,
Basin;
The glacial streams
Empty into that lake
Quiet, ever so silent,
Rippling lyre, reflection;
Snows and rocks frame it —
I have no words
Only emotions
Which boil and rise
With the thunder of horses,
The sound of stick
And ball thudding
Across the turf;
The ghosts of this place,
Had I but seen them,
Pale as the snow
Cold as the lake
As vivid as the night-fires
That light the valley;
The whistle of wind
The throb of drum
The chant of song
Had I seen the ghosts dance
Their victory dance….
Question
All my life
Has been lived
For the one moment
Beyond being
Which now points out
New horizons, yet unseen;
Not-being,
What will be?
Mists
over Thandiani*
Tonight on the veranda
I behold
The crystalline hilltops
Sublimate into an avalanche
Of snowflakes, in turn
Dissolving into the haze
Of silent mists;
Trees stand frozen
Like stiff soldiers
Mantled in unstirring ranks
Braced for some dire consequence Ill-defined;
A wolf’s eldritch howl
Echoes
And night-birds trill their alarm
As the sickle moon
Glides away behind its many veils;
Owl-flights haunt
My dreams now
And your long green hair
Bewilders me with witchcraft.
* Thandiani is a hill resort located at approx.9000 ft above sea level in the
Hazara Division of the NW Frontier Province of Pakistan. It is surrounded on
three sides by dark coniferous forests and these offer a stark contrast to the
snowy peaks of the Pir Panjal Range, in Kashmir, to the North-East.
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