Jim Shepard

Litstack Recs |Three classics of Writing Craft & The Poet X

Published on : 26 June, 202018 March, 2021 Published by : LitStackEditor

If you’re devoting some of your stay-at-home to a work-in-progress, here are three classics of writing craft to see you through. Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them, by Francine Prose In this collection, comprised of a series […]

Birthdays

On this day, May 11, in 1919, screenwriter John Michael Hayes was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. Well known for his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock (who he worked with on Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry and The Man Who Knew Too Much), he started his writing career crafting shows for radio, which in turn led to invitation from Universal-International Pictures to write for the movies. He also penned scripts for such classics 1950s films as Torch Song, The Carpetbaggers, Peyton Place, and BUtterfield 8. He also taught film writing at Darmouth College until 2000, and died of natural
causes in 2008.

Birthdays

On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.