Who are my Writers?
About a week ago someone asked me who my best writers were; I said there was too many to put down. Then today I got thinking of it, that really was a wrong statement. There are really not many, if you look at the long line of writers, if indeed there are any good novel writers out there today, there are only a few, as well as a few good poets (Like Robert Bly and Donald Hall), worth their salt. What we have today, is quick sell entertainment writers. We do not have writers today that will be remembered fifty to a hundred years from now, their books will not be on anyone’s shelves, or in any library. After they are dead, they will be forgotten perhaps in ten to twenty years. The last great writers, or my best writers were such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Mary Renault, F. Scott Fitzgerald, O Henry, Clare A. Smith, William Durant, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Alan Poe, George Sterling, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jack London, Bram Stoker, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, writers of this caliber. We don’t have them today. We do have a few good writers, who have written a few good books, but then comes the garbage thereafter. Colleen McCullough (she has two or three worthy books), Ken Follet (he has two books I consider worthy). Erich Maria Remarque. Longfellow. Julius Verne are also good writers, and well above the pack.
We can write to be read, or just for posterity, or for entertainment, there is nothing wrong in either case; or you can write for both and end up somewhere in-between. My first book, “The Other Door,” now on its 26th year of existence, and is on most every internet bookstore list, has been out of print for 20-years, is still in demand, and a first edition, signed can go as high as $122 dollars, it was a $5. Dollar in 1981, the book had only 750-copies made. It will be around for the next 100-years I expect, if it has lasted this long; it has passed the test of time. It is out of print, and I will not republish it. My point is, it was written for that exact purpose.
About a week ago someone asked me who my best writers were; I said there was too many to put down. Then today I got thinking of it, that really was a wrong statement. There are really not many, if you look at the long line of writers, if indeed there are any good novel writers out there today, there are only a few, as well as a few good poets (Like Robert Bly and Donald Hall), worth their salt. What we have today, is quick sell entertainment writers. We do not have writers today that will be remembered fifty to a hundred years from now, their books will not be on anyone’s shelves, or in any library. After they are dead, they will be forgotten perhaps in ten to twenty years. The last great writers, or my best writers were such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Mary Renault, F. Scott Fitzgerald, O Henry, Clare A. Smith, William Durant, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Alan Poe, George Sterling, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jack London, Bram Stoker, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, writers of this caliber. We don’t have them today. We do have a few good writers, who have written a few good books, but then comes the garbage thereafter. Colleen McCullough (she has two or three worthy books), Ken Follet (he has two books I consider worthy). Erich Maria Remarque. Longfellow. Julius Verne are also good writers, and well above the pack.
We can write to be read, or just for posterity, or for entertainment, there is nothing wrong in either case; or you can write for both and end up somewhere in-between. My first book, “The Other Door,” now on its 26th year of existence, and is on most every internet bookstore list, has been out of print for 20-years, is still in demand, and a first edition, signed can go as high as $122 dollars, it was a $5. Dollar in 1981, the book had only 750-copies made. It will be around for the next 100-years I expect, if it has lasted this long; it has passed the test of time. It is out of print, and I will not republish it. My point is, it was written for that exact purpose.
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