Writers on Wednesday: O. Henry [William Sydney Porter]

Last Wednesday, having finished a favorite audiobook by a favorite author, I made writing about writers on Wednesday my goal. 

However,  I opted to save Edna Ferber, my inspiration for writing the series, for a future Wednesday, because the date was September 11 and my mind has linked the events of that day in 2001 forever with The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Thornton Wilder's approach to humanity. 

I am eschewing Edna again this week, because I realized this week that September 11 is also  the birthday of William Sydney Porter - better known to the world as O. Henry.  Had I a [deeper voice and an almanac] I may have known it sooner. 

O. Henry is one of my all-time, top-shelf favorite authors, and I love William Sydney Porter for the larger-than-life lore, too. 

Most of the authors I adore have long been on the other side of eternity. Sufficient biographies exist and it isn't my intent to write new ones. Go - delve into the material that has already been conveniently compiled - or just glance their [Wikipedia page]. 

Then let them tell you stories. 

I have always appreciated short stories, going as far back as the quick vignettes on Sesame Street. 

Blame my attention span. 

As I was raising (and homeschooling) my children, a large part of my reading time was our reading time. I read aloud from children's books and classics in the front seat of the car as we travelled or the hallway in between their bedrooms at bedtime.  I wouldn't change a thing.  

Short story collections fit perfectly into the thimble of time leftover for personal use. 

I discovered countless authors through short story anthologies. 

My own writing style has been influenced by short form in many ways. 

“I'll give you the whole secret to short story writing. Here it is. Rule 1: Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule 2.”
― O. Henry

I still have the first O. Henry collection I bought many years ago, found in one of my favorite old bookstores down by the river in Beaufort, SC. 

I wanted a library full of books, especially old ones with their papery perfume and ancient wisdom. I found O. Henry's familiar name on the cracking orange spines of a two volume set as good a start as any.

“Each of us, when our day's work is done, must seek our ideal, whether it be love or pinochle or lobster à la Newburg, or the sweet silence of the musty bookshelves.”
― O. Henry

I don't recall if the library seeds came before or after my blog Ordinary Life -longtime onlookers know I've kept more blogs than a fur coat of Dalmatians- and the name wasn't a direct reference to any one factor. But O. Henry's [delight over ordinary things] is sympatico in spirit. 

“There are stories in everything. I've got some of my best yarns from park benches, lampposts, and newspaper stands.”
― O. Henry

One of my favorite things about reading O. Henry is discovering the way the world was before me. Often ways that are no longer commonplace but were as normal as [dandelions in salad] once upon a time. 

I also like the current of writer's life humming through his writing. The fourth wall is often broken or ignored altogether and the reader is trusted to always catch his meaning. 

I remember learning, a long, long time ago, that Mickey's Christmas Carol was based on real stories from books. And so, I was an early fan of [The Gift of the Magi. 

It was much later, and thanks to [Bill Myers]  I discovered [The Last Leaf] was written by the same author. 

And that is likely where my greater discovery of O. Henry's works began. 

The names of authors and books inside other books are highly contagious. 

“It would seem that the story is ended, instead of begun; that the close of a tragedy and the climax of a romance have covered the ground of interest; but, to the more curious reader it shall be some slight instruction to trace the close threads that underlie the ingenuous web of circumstances.”
― O. Henry, O. Henry: The Complete Works

I can't list here all of O. Henry's stories I've read - again, I sometimes neglect the ones I haven't gotten to for another round with the ones I love. Right now, I'm listening through [Waifs and Strays] via LibriVox, mostly while driving. 

And every year, on the Fourth of July, it is my own tradition to listen to [The Fourth in Salvador]

Each time I visit a new-to-me story - by O. Henry or any favorite author - I am always sorry I didn't arrive sooner. 

"And most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends one with another, being oft associated, until not even obituary notices them do part.”― O. Henry, Whirligigs

One thing I learned about O. Henry as I was readying to write this is that he died at the age of 47 from diabetes. That's less than a stone's throw from my own age.  His complete life and body of work before the benefit of fifty. 

“The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. A fine example was the Prodigal Son — when he started back home.” ― O. Henry, The Green Door

How very glad I am he didn't dillydally. Time, being as it is, of the essence. 

“The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. A large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to the drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves.”― O. Henry

“If a person has lived through war, poverty and love, he has lived a full life”
― O. Henry

“We can't buy one minute of time with cash; if we could, rich people would live longer.” -O. Henry

Writers on Wednesday: Thornton Wilder

This week, I finished an audio book from one of my favorite authors, [Edna Ferber].  I wondered which of my other writing friends may fancy her work, and having recently purposed to walk more on the writing treadmill, I decided to make up one of those little alliterative things we like to do- you know,  Taco Tuesdays, Thirsty Thursdays, Freaky Fridays and Moonlight Madness sales. 

I would write about my favorite authors on Wednesdays - until I had a hall of fame, or at least a top ten. 

I thought I would start with the most recent ending -author of the book I just finished-  but then I remembered what today is and switched to someone I find more fitting: 

Thornton Wilder

He gave us [The Bridge of St. Luis Rey] - a story where one monk dedicates what remains of his life investigating whether a sudden disaster was caused or allowed by God, whether the people who lost their lives had been punished or granted deliverance from their circumstances. He conducts interviews and tackles all the angles of "why" and "what if" in the face of tragedy.  

[read it here] or [listen via LibriVox]

But he also gave us [Our Town] (coming back soon to Broadway!) and The Matchmaker (Hello!Dolly) which ties in with [my full circle Monday] and the Island Player's production that firstly disappointed Riley because it wasn't about making matches and went on to disappoint her a second time because there were also no dolls at all. 

Wilder gave us the Indian burian grounds in The Long Christmas Dinner - an all time favorite - you can watch it as a short film [here]

It took me longer to catch the rhythm in [The Skin of Our Teeth] - but once I did, I love it as much as the Fractured Fairy Tales of Bullwinkle Moose or Monty Python's circus. 

I rode through time and space on [Pullman Car Hiawatha] (and learned what a Pullman Car was) and journeyed happily to Trenton and Camden with a family, tender as my own in times of tribulation. 

There are still a handful of his titles I am working toward or through, the delay due to my tendency to read through my favorite titles again and again. 

I always close books by Wilder thinking "He knew." 

He saw people well - clear through to their soul. He was able to put into words the ephemeral experience of being alive, the new-Creation-nakedness of being human. 

And I love his insistence on simplicity - perfect contrast to the complexity of life itself. 

Twenty three years ago, I was 21 and living in a hotel room in Jacksonville, Florida. 

When the news broke of America's unexpected tragedy on 9/11, my two children - both under the age of two - were on a pallet bed, asleep on the floor.  

The next few hours held shock, fear, grief and a sudden solidarity like I'd never experienced before. 

I don't know where all the American flags came from that next day and stretching into the months to come- they simply multiplied. 

We pledged then to never, ever forget

What was it we wanted to remember? 

The frailty of life? 

The unpredictability of a day? 

The unity of our nation? 

That [life goes on and on and on... ] ?

All that and then some, I know. 

Today, I am 44. My children have doubled and (hopefully) none are forced to sleep on the floor. One son is the same age now as I was then, one daughter, even younger. 

They came after the cleared debris, and once those flags, one by one, got quietly tucked away. 

We do not know what they may face, anymore than we know for ourselves, but they will draw from the wells of wisdom we dig- let us ensure that they run deep. 

As Thornton Wilder said, first in "Our Town" and then again, in "The Skin of Our Teeth" : 

“We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”
― Thornton Wilder, Our Town

“Each new child that’s born…seems to them to be sufficient reason for the whole universe’s being set in motion; and each new child that dies seems to them to have been spared a whole world of sorrow, and what the end of it will be is still very much an open question.”
― Thornton Wilder, The Skin of Our Teeth: A Play

May they never find themselves as bankrupt as George Antrobus, devoid the desire to build again.  

MRS. ANTROBUS: What, George? What have you lost? 

MR. ANTROBUS: The most important thing of all: The desire to begin again, to start building.” 

― Thornton Wilder, The Skin of Our Teeth: A Play