Editor. Proofreader. Wordsmith. Fact-Checker. Researcher.
adjective | [fan’ee-fyoo-gal]
Hating endings; of someone who tries to avoid or prolong the final moment of a story, relationship, or some other journey … Oh, Never Mind.
fini-s: end
+ fug-a: flight
+ -al
Quotation
1883 A. Tollemache in Jrnl. Educ. 1 Sept. “In modern as well as in ancient times, the finifugal tendencyis apparent.”
Mark Forsyth’s 11 Weird Words/Phrases You Should Be Using
A friend posted about a novel quiz he took and realized that he didn’t know any of the Black Authors. He asked for suggestions as to what he should read. This got me thinking, and I thought I would share my reply. Bear in mind, this is MY OPINION. Let me know in the comments below of any that you recommend.
Richard Wright’s Black Boy and Native Son.
Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain and Notes of a Native Son (set during the civil rights movement)
W.E.B Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folks
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
Alex Haley’s Roots, The Saga of an American Family and The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Did you know? The play A Raisin in the Sun by playwright Lorraine Hansberry was named for a line from a Langston Hughes poem.
Or does it explode?
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
Toni Morrison’s Beloved
BONUS:
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an editor and writer for The Atlantic. I mentioned him in my Just the Facts… About Fact-Checking blog post.
Also … Both Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison are mentioned in my Literary Arts Postage Stamp series of posts on the blog. Feel free to go take a look at them.
For Further Reading:
10 Black Authors Everyone Should Read by PBS.org. This has little biographies and blurbs on most of the authors I listed above, and a few that I didn’t know about.
22 Contemporary Authors You Absolutely Should be Reading by Isaac Fitzgerald
Remember back in April when I went to the book launch for Ageless Women, Timeless Wisdom?
Lisa Graves has now teamed up with her best friend Tricia Cohen for a wonderful cookbook, A Thyme and Place: Medieval Feasts for the Modern Table. Tricia did the recipes, and Lisa did the illustrations.
I had the absolute pleasure of meeting both Lisa and Tricia that day at the book launch. They are warm, funny, wicked smart, and talented.I would hang out with them anywhere, anytime. [They need to come West more often, however.]
Revive your inner period cook and master the art of gode cookery with thirty-five recipes celebrating festivals throughout the year!
Fancy a leap back in time to the kitchens in the Middle Ages? Return to when cauldrons bubbled over hearths, whole oxen were roasted over spits. Common cooking ingredients included verjuice, barley, peafowl, frumenty, and elder flowers. You, too, can learn the art of gode cookery—or, at least, come close to it.
With gorgeous and whimsical hand-drawn illustrations from beginning to end, A Thyme and Place is both a cookbook and a history for foodies and history buffs alike. Cohen and Graves revive old original medieval recipes and reimagine and modify them to suit modern palates and tastes. Each recipe is tied directly to a specific calendar holiday and feast so you can learn to cook:
• Summer harvest wine with elder flower, apples, and pears for St. John’s Day (June 21st)
• Right-as-rain apple cake for St. Swithin’s Day (July 15th)
• Wee Matilda’s big pig fried pork balls with sage for Pig Face Day (September 14th)
• Roasted goose with fig glaze and bannock stuffing for Michaelmas (September 29th)
• Peasant duck ravioli and last of the harvest chutney for Martinmas (November 11th)
FRIED PORK BALLS WITH SAGE CREME
This dish was adapted from an original, circa 1390, recipe:
Sawge yfarcet. Take pork and seeþ it wel, and grinde it smal, and medle it wiþ ayren & brede ygrated. Do þerto powdour fort and safroun wiþ pynes & salt. Take & close litull balles in foiles of sawge; wete it with a batour of ayren & fry it, & serue it forth.
For the meatballs:
2 cups uncooked ground pork
1 large egg, beaten
7 tablespoons panko
1⁄2 teaspoon allspice
1⁄4 teaspoon ginger
1⁄4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of ground cloves
Pinch of ground saffron
1 1⁄4 teaspoons salt
4 fresh sage leaves, finely cut; plus a dozen sage leaves, whole
For the tempura batter:
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1⁄2 cup seltzer water
Salt, to taste
Lard (can substitute canola oil)
12 whole sage leaves
For the sage creme:
2 tablespoons butter
1 large shallot, minced
2 tablespoons minced fresh sage
3⁄4 cup mead
3⁄4 cup heavy whipping cream
For the meatballs: Mix meatball ingredients in a large bowl. Mold the mixture to form meatballs. Parboil meatballs for 10 minutes. Place meatballs on paper towel to cool.
For the tempura batter: While meatballs are boiling, create the tempura batter by mixing together the flour, cornstarch, seltzer and salt to taste. Mix until smooth. Let sit for 10 minutes.
Melt a hunk of lard in a heavy pan. After the lard has heated over medium to medium-high heat, take two forks and toss the cooled meatballs into the tempura batter.
Turn the meatballs gently in the lard until the tempura is golden. It does not have to look perfect … as long as it tastes good. When the meatballs are finished, toss the whole sage leaves in the tempura batter and give them a quick fry in the hot lard.
For the sage creme: Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a heavy pan. Toss in the minced shallots and minced sage. After the shallots are soft, pour in the mead and stir. Pour in the whipping cream and stir. Boil down by half until thick, on medium-high heat.
Garnish the meatballs with the creme and a piece of crispy sage.
VIRILE CHICKPEAS
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
Zest (1 tablespoon) and juice of one lemon ( 1⁄4 cup)
2 cans (15 ounces each) chickpeas (Garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
2 cups baby spinach, chopped
1 cup chicken stock
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1⁄2 cup shredded cheddar
1⁄4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
Heat the olive oil in saute pan on medium heat. Add the garlic and rosemary to hot pan, cook until fragrant, then add the lemon zest (it smells sooo good).
Stir and add the chickpeas to mixture. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes.
Stir in the lemon juice, spinach, chicken stock, salt and pepper. Cook until the liquid is gone.
Remove from heat, add to a serving plate and finish with the cheddar and parsley.
BACON JAM
1 1⁄2 pounds thick-cut bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 large sweet onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
6 mission figs, chopped (optional)
1⁄2 cup dark-brown sugar, firmly packed
1⁄2 cup apple-cider vinegar
1⁄4 cup honey
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons Drambuie or bourbon
1⁄8 teaspoon salt
Heat a Dutch oven over medium heat and add the bacon. Cover and cook for approximately 25 minutes. Check on the bacon with some frequency, giving in a stir each time.
After the bacon begins to crisp, remove the cover and cook for another 5 minutes or so. Turn the heat off when the bacon is fully crisp. Remove using a slotted spoon and set aside on a paper towel-lined plate. Let the fat in the Dutch oven cool for a few minutes and then — hear us — save the stuff in a container for future cooking.
Leave all but 2 tablespoons of bacon fat in the Dutch oven. Turn the heat back to medium. Add onions and garlic, scrapping up any delicious bacon bits from the bottom of the pan, and cook until soft. After they are soft, add the figs.
Drop the heat to medium low and add the brown sugar, cider vinegar, honey, ginger, pepper and Drambuie. Cook for 10 minutes, just enough time for the mixture to start to get jammy.
Adjust the heat to medium for 5 minutes. Stir frequently to prevent the jam from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Lower heat to medium low and add the bacon. Cook for 20 minutes, covered. Stir occasionally. Remove lid and cook for 5 more minutes. Add salt.
Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Add mixture to food processor and chop to desired texture.
On June 7th, the cookbook was released in bookstores across the country.
Be sure to follow Lisa and Tricia on their Facebook page as they Deconstruct History: One Bite at a Time.
Tricia Cohen grew up in a house with two kitchens, surrounded by family, food, and love. In her adult life, she continues to share her love for food with the community as a hostess, gourmet home cook, and sous chef.
Lisa Graves is the author and illustrator of the series Women in History, as well as the illustrator of The Tudor Tutor. She is the creator of Historywitch.com, a site dedicated to illustrations of history’s most fascinating characters.
For Further Reading
Feehan grads’ ‘A Thyme and Place’ cookbook updates Middle Ages cuisine
Friendship helps ‘Thyme and Place’ cookbook authors get through family tragedies
As a history major in undergrad, and a book lover for more years than I care to count, finding the notice on Chained Libraries on Atlas Obscura tickled my fancy. I’ve officially added a ton of places to go visit on my bucket list now –Sorry, Hubby! The below information comes directly from the Hereford Cathedral website, as who better to describe what is there than the curators of the Library themselves? If, one day I actually get to see this in person, I’ll be sure to re-blog and tell you my own personal thoughts. Until then… Happy exploring.
The Chained Library at Hereford Cathedral is a unique and fascinating treasure in Britain’s rich heritage of library history.
There were books at Hereford Cathedral long before there was a ‘library’ in the modern sense.
The cathedral’s earliest and most important book is the eighth-century Hereford Gospels; it is one of 229 medieval manuscripts which now occupy two bays of the Chained Library.
This is the oldest complete book in Hereford Cathedral Library. It dates from around the year 800 AD and may be the earliest surviving book made in Wales. It contains the first four books of the New Testament: the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These narratives of the life, death and resurrection of Christ are regarded by Christians as their most precious and sacred writings.
Chaining books was the most widespread and effective security system in European libraries from the middle ages to the eighteenth century, and Hereford Cathedral’s seventeenth-century Chained Library is the largest to survive with all its chains, rods and locks intact.
A chain is attached at one end to the front cover of each book; the other end is slotted on to a rod running along the bottom of each shelf. The system allows a book to be taken from the shelf and read at the desk, but not to be removed from the bookcase.
The books are shelved with their foredges, rather than their spines, facing the reader (the wrong way round to us); this allows the book to be lifted down and opened without needing to be turned around – thus avoiding tangling the chain.
There is an interactive website you can take a 360-degree tour of the library.
Did You Know?
•There has been a working theological library at the cathedral since the twelfth century, and the whole library continues to serve the cathedral’s work and witness both as a research centre and as a tourist attraction.
•The Chained Library has about 1500 books which date from the late fifteenth- to the early nineteenth-centuries. Fifty-six of them are incunabula, i.e. books printed before 1500. They are chiefly concerned with theology, biblical studies, law and church history.
Have you been to Hereford Cathedral and seen the Chained Library in person? Tell me in the comments, or on my twitter page .
Stay tuned for more on unique and amazing libraries around the world!
What is the connection between Ogden Nash and James Thurber? Besides both being humorists, they published at The New Yorker during the same time period. In 1930, Nash’s first poem “Invocation” was published January 11. Did you know Nash contributed 329 poems to The New Yorker between 1930 and 1971?
Meanwhile, the magazine ran a drawing by James Thurber for the first time in the February 22, 1930 issue. E. B. White had rescued Thurber’s doodles from being discarded, and encouraged the writer to publish his art work.
Ogden Nash 37¢
(1902-1971)
Issue Date: August 19, 2002
City: Baltimore, MD
Quantity: 70,000,000
American humorist and poet Ogden Nash wrote light-hearted, whimsical, and sometimes nonsensical verse. He often used an extremely large poetic license to create comical rhymes and puns. Ogden Nash is the 18th honoree of the Literary Arts Series.
An interesting couple of notes about the Ogden Nash stamp. It is the first time the word ‘Sex’ has appeared on a stamp; and probably also is the first time a limerick has appeared on a U.S. stamp.
U.S. Postal Service chief stamp developer Terry McCaffrey told CBSNews.com he expects to get complaints about “sex,” which is included in the six Nash poems in the background of the design: “The Turtle,” “The Cow,” “Crossing The Border,” “The Kitten,” “The Camel,” and “Limerick One.”
Nash poked fun at human foibles without cynicism. He wrote on many subjects, but all of his poems expressed his wry wit and demonstrated his playfulness with language. “I’m very fond of the English language. I tease it, and you tease only the things you love,” Nash reportedly said. He invented words and used puns, creative misspellings, irregular line lengths and unexpected rhymes to make his verse humorous and memorable. Because of his unique style, many consider Ogden Nash to have been one of the most accomplished American writers of light verse in the 20th century.
In a letter to the editor of The New York Times in 1969, Nash complained about stamps that would not stick to envelopes. He lamented, “The Post Office should supply a roll of Scotch tape with every 100 stamps, but mine won’t even sell me one. I’d like to go back to where I came from: 1902.”
Nash considered himself a ‘worsifier’. One of the most universally known verses is: “Candy is dandy/but liquor is quicker.” Others include: “If called by a panther, / Don’t anther,” and “In the vanities / No one wears panities.”
Did you know? Nash’s great-great-grandfather was governor of North Carolina during the Revolution, and that ancestor’s brother was General Francis Nash, for whom Nashville, Tennessee, was named.
James Thurber 29¢
(1894-1961)
Issue Date: September 10, 1994
City: Columbus, OH
Quantity: 150,750,000
One of the most popular humorists of his time, James Thurber celebrated the comic frustrations and eccentricities of ordinary people. In Thurber-Land, the men are often sad, bewildered, and inept; the women are fierce and determined; and their dogs are indifferent to men a women alike, and are immersed in a fantasy world of their own. Thurber is the author of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which portrays an oversensitive man who escapes from his nagging wife through his daydreams, and the creator of numerous New Yorker magazine cover cartoons. Writing nearly 40 books, he won a Tony Award for the Broadway play, A Thurber Carnival, in which he often starred as himself.
One of his books, My World and Welcome To It, was turned into an NBC television series in 1969-1970 starring William Windom. My World and Welcome To It, won best Comedy Series and Windom won Best Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1970 Emmys.
Thurber spent much time in and about the Algonquin Hotel in New York City. Though never a formal member of the Algonquin Round Table, he was a favorite among many of its members including, Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley.
Thurber is the 11th honoree of the Literary Arts series. Read his “The Art of Fiction” interview the Paris Review by George Plimpton and Max Steele.
Did You Know? As a child, Thurber’s brother shot him in the eye with an arrow during a game of William Tell. James Thurber lost his left eye, and the incident left his vision permanently impaired.
For the rest of the Give A Lick: Literary Arts series of blog posts, check out Dorothy Parker and John Steinbeck, as well as Flannery O’Connor and Ralph Ellison.
For Further Reading & Source Material:
Eighty-five from the archive: Ogden Nash
PR Wire “Literary Arts series Continues with Issuance of Ogden Nash stamp”
*Note: The cool thing about this link is that it shows you the full verses of poems used on the Ogden Nash stamp.
Poetry Foundation / Ogden Nash
Ten Facts about Caldecott Winner , James Thurber
Thurber Prize for American Humor
*Note: The Thurber Prize for American Humor is the nation’s highest recognition of the art of humor writing.
Many writers do feel the urge to write about what they see, what they know, what they’ve experienced, capturing the writer’s zeitgeist. Are you writing about your experience or are you more interested in your imagination’s ability to create new worlds?
Born September 4, 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi, Wright came from a family of sharecroppers in the Jim Crow South. He was the 25th inductee into the Postal Service’s Literary Arts series. Best remembered for his controversial 1940 novel, Native Son, and his 1945 autobiography, Black Boy, Wright drew on a wide range of literary traditions, including protest writing and detective fiction, to craft unflinching portrayals of racism in American society. Wright died in Paris on November 28, 1960.
Wright’s Native Son was the first best-selling novel by a Black American writer. It was also the first Book-of-the-Month Club selection by an African-American writer.
Native Son sold 215,000 copies within three weeks of publication. The book made Wright the wealthiest Black writer in America at that time.
For further reading:
Joe Bunting’s Do You Write from Experience or Imagination?
“Characters are not created by writers. They pre-exist and have to be found.”
Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973)
Writers may come to know their characters as they create them. Perhaps they are ‘found’ by slowly revealing themselves to the writer. If the writer comes to know their characters as they write, perhaps the writer’s perception is also from the reader’s perspective.
Check out one of Elizabeth Bowen’s best-known works, The Death of the Heart, published in 1938. It demonstrates her debt to Henry James in the careful observation of detail and the theme of innocence darkened by experience. The novel is noted for its dexterous portrayal of an adolescent’s stormy inner life. Its three sections—“The World,” “The Flesh,” and “The Devil”—refer to the baptismal rite in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
For Further Reading:
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-Bowen
Victoria Glendinning on the love affair between Elizabeth Bowen and Charles Ritchie
Rabelais and Panurge: A Psychological Approach to Literary Character by Mary E. Ragland
Fight. (v)
Old English feohtan “to combat, contend with weapons, strive; attack; gain by fighting, win” (intransitive; class III strong verb; past tense feaht, past participle fohten), from Proto-Germanic *fehtan (cognates: Old High German fehtan, German fechten, Middle Dutch and Dutch vechten, Old Frisianfiuhta “to fight”), from PIE *pek- (2) “to pluck out” (wool or hair), apparently with a notion of “pulling roughly” (cognates: Greek pekein “to comb, shear,” pekos “fleece, wool;” Persian pashm “wool, down,” Latin pectere “to comb,” Sanskrit paksman- “eyebrows, hair”).Spelling substitution of -gh- for a “hard H” sound was a Middle English scribal habit, especially before -t-. In some late Old English examples, the middle consonant was represented by a yogh. Among provincial early Modern English spellings, Wright lists faight, fate, fecht, feeght, feight, feit, feyght, feyt,feort, foight.
From c. 1200 as “offer resistance, struggle;” also “to quarrel, wrangle, create a disturbance.” From late 14c. as “be in conflict.” Transitive use from 1690s. To fight for “contest on behalf of” is from early 14c. To fight back “resist” is recorded from 1890. Well figt þat wel fligt (“he fights well that flies fast”) was a Middle English proverb.
If you are writing a novel that has fighting and combat scenes in it, it is important to consider what the reader will take away from it. Will they skim the every-last-detail and skip to the character-driven scenes and dialogue? How does a writer entice the reader to stay on the page and understand the character development that you have put hours into creating?
Your choice of words can provide a crucial element or hint to the reader of what is happening in the story going forward, or bring it back to a certain point in a previous chapter. The way the protagonist fights, walks away, or uses dialogue to convey what they are thinking at that moment will keep your reader wanting more.
Also consider what the supporting characters in the room are doing during the fight. Are they chatting quietly, egging on the fighters, or placing bets on who will win while drinking whiskey?
What happens to that quiet character you’ve been showing on the page, does he get excited by the blood flow? Maybe that is a hint to your reader that there is more than meets the eye.
Who comes to help in the fight? Who stays out of the way? Maybe your character that everyone thinks would jump right in, will stay on the sidelines. The female at the bar, who one would not expect to help, will be fighting right alongside with her weapon that she has hidden on her at all times.
“Even if you’re not all that interested in firearms and knives, it’s worth getting them right because of how stories can hinge on the way characters use them. Did that revolver hold six shots or only five? In a critical scene, that could mean the difference between a character being alive or not. Are you sure that knife is legal for your character to carry? If it’s not, the knife might not match the character’s profile.”
– Benjamin Sobieck, The Writer’s Guide to Weapons
On my Pinterest Word List board, I have this pinned. I think it is a good reference when you find your fight scenes are lacking some color or action words. If you are trying to craft the write (right) scene to jump off the page, and have your readers thinking about the scenario and what happens next.
Carefully research your weaponry and your fighting styles are true to your era to ensure you don’t break suspension of disbelief. Think about King Arthur and the Medieval setting — broadswords, flails, chain mail, halberds, and horsemen’s axes.
Now consider a story set in a more contemporary era. What would be the weapon of choice? Guns.
A Civil War era novel would have the Henry lever-action rifle, the Spencer repeating rifle, or a Smith & Wesson Schofield. But you would want to use AK-47s, or M16 rifles, if you are writing a novel set in post-World War II, for infantry combat.
In This Kind of War, historian T.R. Fehrenbach’s seminal work on The Korean War, he wrote:
“You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life—but if you desire to defend it, protect it and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men in the mud.”
Here are 21 words that are obscure and may lead you down a different path in your writing. Did you know the suffix machy is Greek, from -mache, to fight?
| Word | Definition |
|---|---|
| alectryomachy | cock-fighting |
| batrachomyomachy | battle between frogs and mice; a burlesque poem attributed to Homer |
| cynartomachy | bear-baiting using dogs |
| duomachy | duel or fight between two people |
| gigantomachy | war of giants against the gods |
| hieromachy | fight or quarrel between priests |
| hoplomachy | fighting while heavily armoured |
| iconomachy | opposition to the worship of images or icons |
| logomachy | contention about words or in words |
| monomachy | single combat; a duel |
| naumachy | mock sea-battle |
| pneumatomachy | denial of the divinity of the Holy Ghost |
| poetomachia | contest or quarrel among poets |
| psychomachy | conflict between the body and the soul |
| pygmachy | boxing; fighting with clubs |
| pyromachy | use of fire in combat |
| skiamachy | sham fight; shadow boxing |
| symmachy | fighting jointly against a common enemy |
| tauromachy | bullfighting |
| theomachy | war amongst or against the gods |
| titanomachy | war of the Titans against the gods |
Hope you enjoyed “Them’s fighting words…”
For Further Reading:
Kyle Misokami’s The 5 Deadliest Guns of Modern War
The Middle Ages, Chivalry and Knighthood
Five Essential Tips for Writing Killer Fight Scenes
Writing Tips: Guns, Bullets And Shooting With J. Daniel Sawyer
Benjamin Sobieck’s The Writer’s Guide to Weapons
Word Chart courtesy of The Phrontistery
‘Fight’ definition courtesy of Online Etymology Dictionary
The Internet Movie Firearms Database
