The Romantic Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance: Zora Neale Hurston
August 18, 2008
The Romantic Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance: Zora Neale Hurston
by: Mary Arnold
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) grew up in Eatonville, Florida, the “first incorporated black community in America” (Wall 376). Perhaps her isolation from white racism and discrimination during her childhood and her mother’s encouragement to “jump at da sun” contributed to her strong sense of self and her audacity in crossing racial, social, and gendered boundaries (Wall 376). Indeed, in exploring Hurston’s life and experiences, it is difficult to believe that Hurston herself discerned any boundaries attempting to be foisted on her. Hurston describes her literary aesthetics as:
Every phase of Negro life is highly dramatized. No matter how joyful or how sad the case there is sufficient poise for drama. Everything is acted out. Unconsciously for the most part of course. There is an impromptu ceremony always ready for every hour of life. No little moment passes unadorned. (Wall 163)
In her four novels, Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934), Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), and Seraph on the Suwanee (1948); in her two works of ethnography, Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938); a memoir, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942); and “more than fifty published short stories, essays, and plays” Hurston worked to recreate “the sense of drama and will to adorn” that she found in the language of African Americans (Wall).
The Romantic Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance: Claude McKay
August 17, 2008
The Romantic Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance: Claude McKay
by: Mary Arnold
Claude McKay (1890-1948) was born in Jamaica to “relatively prosperous peasants” (Hathaway 489). In his youth he “studied classical and British literary figures and philosophers as well as science and theology” (Hathaway 489). McKay’s earliest poetry was written in traditional English forms, but later he was encouraged by his mentor Walter Jekyll to write “dialect poetry rooted in the island’s folk culture” (Hathaway 489). His first two volumes of poetry, Songs of Jamaica (1912) and Constab Ballads (1912), are primarily written in dialect. McKay immigrated to the United States in the fall of 1912, and after studying agriculture at Tuskegee Institute and Kansas State College, he moved to New York City in 1914 (Hathaway 490).
In New York, McKay became “increasingly involved with political and literary radicals” (Hathaway 490). His third volume of poetry, Spring in New Hampshire (1920), reflects his changing political stance; his previous use of dialect is gone, and the poems are divided between commentary of race relations in America and nostalgic images of life in Jamaica (Hathaway 490). Dissatisfied with American leftist efforts to combat racism, McKay escaped to the Soviet Union in 1922 and spent six months traveling throughout the country, attending Communist symposiums and lecturing on art and politics (Hathaway 490). While in Russia, McKay “republished a series of articles he had written for the Soviet press” under the title Negroes in America (1923), which delivers a “Marxist interpretation of the history of African Americans” (Hathaway 490).
The Romantic Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance: Nella Larsen
August 16, 2008
The Romantic Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance: Nella Larsen
by: Mary Arnold
Like her contemporary Jessie Redmon Fauset, Nella Larsen also fictionalized middle class society; however in Larsen’s works, there are undercurrents that imply middle class values are not always ‘good.’ Nella Larsen’s only two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) were ‘novels of passing’ but unlike their predecessors, these two novels are “more complex and ambitious” (Davis 560). In these works, Larsen “explores the relationships between appearance and reality, deception and unmasking, manipulation and imaginative management, aggression and self-defense” (Davis 561). Perhaps Larsen is able to delve deeper into the consciousness of people torn between two worlds because she herself had experienced living in both the ‘white’ world and the ‘black’ world.
Larsen’s mother was an emigrant from Denmark, and her father was from the Virgin Islands. During her early childhood, she lived in a “white working-class neighborhood of Chicago,” and attended an elementary school which consisted mainly of the “children of German and Scandinavian immigrants” (Wall 91). However, Wall reports that Larsen suffered “alienation” in her home life, and was “ostracized at school and in the neighborhood” (Wall 91).
The Romantic Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes
August 15, 2008
The Romantic Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes
by: Mary Arnold
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was a true Renaissance man, being a poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, autobiographer, and writer of children’s books (Rampersad 368). He was born in Joplin, Missouri, and spent most of his childhood in Lawrence, Kansas, but also lived in Illinois, Ohio, and Mexico (Rampersad 368). Hughes’ earliest influence was his maternal grandmother, Mary Langston, who intrigued the young Hughes with stories of her first husband who died at Harper’s Ferry and her second husband, Hughes’ grandfather, who was also a “militant abolitionist” (Rampersad 368). His literary influences include Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Claude McKay (Rampersad 368). From his familial and literary influences, Hughes derived a love for personal expression, free verse, black dialect, and racial pride.
Hughes’ first two volumes of poetry, The Weary Blues (1926) and Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927) exhibit Hughes’ experimentation with fusing “jazz and blues with traditional verse” (Rampersad 369). While these volumes were “received reasonably well by the white press,” the black community generally condemned the poems as presenting “racial defects before the public” (Taylor 93). But Hughes was not one to let his peers’ critical judgment hinder his artistic freedom. In his 1926 essay, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Hughes attempts to prove that one can exhibit racial pride and still maintain artistic integrity:
To Get Paid What You Are Worth, Don’t Say a Word
August 13, 2008
To Get Paid What You Are Worth, Don’t Say a Word
by: Kathleen Poole
If you’re like most freelance copywriters and other solo entrepreneurs, you get rattled when it’s time to talk about money with your clients. You may feel like you are being greedy or sleazy, or you might worry that your fees are too high or too low. Inevitably, though, you must state a price for your service or product. And if you’re serious about making a good living in your solo enterprise, you must command a reasonably healthy price.
After 20 years as a freelance copywriter, I feel very comfortable stating my fees. In fact, I even enjoy it. With some practice, you may grow to enjoy it, too. And you’ll certainly reap economic rewards if you do it right.
Stating a good fee for a project is a skill you can learn. I can’t teach you everything you need to know about it in one brief article. But I can give you what I think is the number one rule for successful fee-stating:
After you tell a client your desired fee, stop talking. The first one who talks loses.
How To Deal With Your Prospect’s Objections In Your Web Copy
August 13, 2008
How To Deal With Your Prospect’s Objections In Your Web Copy
by: Bruce Carlson
One of the more difficult things for inexperienced copywriters
seems to be how to deal with possible objections that a prospect
might have about a product or service.
It can be hard to make the leap into your prospect’s mind like
that…
And so, the objections sometimes just don’t get dealt with in the
copy.
Which means you lose sales.
In this short article, I’d like to show you a simple technique for
dealing with your prospect’s objections. Using this method will
clear the way for you to start making a lot more sales with your
Web copy.
1. Make A Nice Big List
Before you even begin to write your copy (including your headline
or lead copy or bullets), sit down and write out a list of ALL the
possible objections your prospect could have about the product or
service you’re pitching.
Every single one of them…and then some.
Get silly about it. Come up with far-fetched and off-the-wall objections.
Is Your Book Selling Well?
August 12, 2008
Is Your Book Selling Well?
by: Penny C. Sansevieri
If your campaign isn’t doing so well there might be a million reasons why. Everything from the book cover to the timing of the book release could affect sales. But there are a few other components that could affect sales and actually cause a campaign to fail that has the potential of being successful.
Overextending too early: book campaigns are marathons, not sprints. This is an especially tough one for authors because they spend so much time writing the book, the last thing they want is to wait even longer for it to be successful. The real truth is, much of what you’ll do in the first 90 days of a campaign is seed planting and sometimes it can take months for those seeds to germinate. The key to success is to pace yourself, but I’m not just talking about pacing your to do list. I’m also talking about pacing your budget. It’s very tempting to blow your entire budget the first few weeks of a campaign. There are so many things you can do, and so much of it is enticing you and tempting your wallet. Plan a budget and stick with it, no matter what and make sure you have a bit to splurge on something for your marketing plan six months after your campaign starts.
An Interview with Author Nancy Geary About Her Latest Release “Being Miss Alcott”
August 11, 2008
An Interview with Author Nancy Geary About Her Latest Release “Being Miss Alcott”
by: Christopher Seufert
Interviewer Christopher Seufert sat down with author Nancy Geary in between promotional events for the release of her latest novel “Being Miss Alcott.” Latest release and information about Nancy can be found at www.NancyGeary.com.
Christopher Seufert: So you’re teaching a class on how to write your first novel?
Nancy Geary: Yes, at the Cape Cod Writers Conference.
CS: You’ve written four books and you’re on your fifth now. What’s the difference between writing a first novel and writing subsequent novels?
NG: Well, the idea of the “Writing Your First Novel” class, the way I teach it, focuses on the choices that you need to be aware of when you’re getting started. We spend a day discussing first person versus third person, which kind of voice is better for the tone that you want, outlining a plot, which I think is incredibly important, the themes of your book, and dialogue… So I think there are various issues that are not so particular to a novel. A novel is like any ambitious project. If you don’t have it all organized in your thoughts before you get started, what’s going to happen to these students is what happens to most people- they start and don’t finish. And so, the ultimate goal of my class is to prepare the students to see their book through to the end.
A Quick Start Guide To Writing Your Memoir
August 9, 2008
A Quick Start Guide To Writing Your Memoir
by: Sophfronia Scott
I’ve learned that when a person starts thinking about telling their life story, they tend to overthink it. They get caught up in worrying about things such as what others will think and who would publish it. The whole thought process results in paralysis so they can’t even figure out how to get started. But if you do your thinking in a more focused way, and then follow it up with specific actions, you’ll have your completed pages done before you know it! Here’s how to get going.
Who is the Book For?
Before sitting down at your desk, decide who you are writing for. Are you writing for a wider audience (the general public)? Are you writing for your children and grandchildren? Answering this question will take many concerns off your plate from the very beginning. For instance, if you are writing only for family members, your writing style can be more intimate and informal, almost as though you are writing them a letter. You also wouldn’t have to worry about getting an agent or attracting a publishing house because you know you’ll either print the book yourself or have a self-publishing company produce a handful of finished books for you.
The Gifts of Being a Writing Parent
August 8, 2008
The Gifts of Being a Writing Parent
by: Dawn Colclasure
You have a deadline. Your work is due within hours, your contact keeps giving you the runaround and your e-mail account suddenly crashes. You’re ready to dive out the window of a highrise because you’re this close to losing your next paycheck. Suddenly, a tiny pair of arms circles around you and a cherubic smile appears. A small voice peeps out from underneath you, saying, “I love you.”
This scenario is just one of those moments you can count on when your day as a working writer gets chaotic. Because not only are you a working writer, but you are also a working writer parent. You have one or more children there to remind you how much your being a writer is important, how it can help you to keep the bill collectors away and how you will always have someone there to say “I love you” right after an editor has said “I hate you.” And the former statement will always erase the latter.
