"I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it." John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck, US novelist famous for Grapes of Wrath - one of my fav books - East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, and several others, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. Steinbeck was writing for several years before he won critical and commercial acclaim, both with Tortilla Flat, a short story cycle set in his beloved Monterey, California.
Suddenly beset with interviewers, the intensely private writer found himself in the public eye. When journalist Ella Winter profiled him he was furious with the print article - apparently Winter had failed with his request that the profile feature his work, not his personality. The bemused journalist asked what he had found so personal.
"You mentioned I had blue eyes," Steinbeck replied.
Steinbeck is a writer I admire tremendously, both for his writing and the intensely humane nature of it. And I wonder how he'd respond to the all-pervasive media environment of today? Today a writer is encouraged to be active on social media - it is an essential marketing tool at a time when a writer needs marketing chops as much as he/she needs her solitude. And therein lies the crux: does this engagement with the world, daily, if not non-stop, impact writing? Would writing be 'purer' without this intrusion? Or is 'intrusion' just another reality of our world, which is what a writer reflects in their writing.
Is Media the writer's new frenemy, an enemy in guise of a friend, or a true friend indeed?
Questions, questions, questions... Any writers out there - what do you think?
John Steinbeck, US novelist famous for Grapes of Wrath - one of my fav books - East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, and several others, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. Steinbeck was writing for several years before he won critical and commercial acclaim, both with Tortilla Flat, a short story cycle set in his beloved Monterey, California.
Suddenly beset with interviewers, the intensely private writer found himself in the public eye. When journalist Ella Winter profiled him he was furious with the print article - apparently Winter had failed with his request that the profile feature his work, not his personality. The bemused journalist asked what he had found so personal.
"You mentioned I had blue eyes," Steinbeck replied.
Steinbeck is a writer I admire tremendously, both for his writing and the intensely humane nature of it. And I wonder how he'd respond to the all-pervasive media environment of today? Today a writer is encouraged to be active on social media - it is an essential marketing tool at a time when a writer needs marketing chops as much as he/she needs her solitude. And therein lies the crux: does this engagement with the world, daily, if not non-stop, impact writing? Would writing be 'purer' without this intrusion? Or is 'intrusion' just another reality of our world, which is what a writer reflects in their writing.
Is Media the writer's new frenemy, an enemy in guise of a friend, or a true friend indeed?
Questions, questions, questions... Any writers out there - what do you think?
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| John Steinbeck accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature 1962 - the Steinbeck Museum, Monterey, California © Manreet Sodhi Someshwar |
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