Meet 11 Literary Muses for November

I have learned to surrender to the muse. I become obsessed with a theme or certain stories; they haunt me for years, 

and finally, I write them. -Isabel Allende

On November 1, let's celebrate National Author’s Day, Family Literacy Day, and National Novel Writing Month! 

How? 

One way is to be curious while meeting some familiar and new literary muses. Some of these eleven authors and poets still create. Then, as Stephen King suggests that some, “Muses are ghosts, and sometimes come uninvited.”

So what is a muse? Muses are visible and invisible energies, found in trusted people, places, pets, and things. They're always present and often not present when needed and so writer’s block appears. Some writers state they've never experienced this state of mind. Lucky them!

Wendell Berry,  poet, essayist, farmer and novelist, offers these clarifying insights:

“There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who return, again and again, to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form.

It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

These 11 writers and poets born in November could serve as your “Muse of Inspiration and Muse of Realization” and whose words sing.
Won't you please meet and remember:

Kamaria Muntu November 1 (b. 1962) – American poet, arts activist, black feminist-Fertile Ground-Memories & Visions: A Call to End the Oppression of Women (1996)

Oodgeroo Noonuccal formerly Kath Walker November 3 (b. 1920-1993) – Australian/ aboriginal poet, political activist, and first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse -We Are Going (1964)

Margaret Mitchell November 8 (b. 1900-1949)-Pulitzer prize winner an American author-Gone with the Wind (1936)

The book is actually divided into five sections, through which the key character, 
the muse, leads us. –Christopher "Kit" Williams

Alicia Ostriker November 11 (b. 1937) – American poet – A Woman Under the Surface: Poems and Prose Poems (1982)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali November 13 (b. 1969) – Somali writer, human rights activist –Infidel (2007)

Karen Armstrong November 14 (b. 1944) – U.K. writer (religion); memoirist – the Spiral Staircase (2004) 

Writing sometimes feels frivolous and sometimes sacred, but memory is one of my strongest muses. I serve her with my words. So long as people read, those we love survive however evanescently. As do we writers, saying with our life's work, 

Remember. 

Remember us. 

Remember me. -Marge Piercy

George Eliot November 22 aka Mary Ann [Marian] Evans (b. 1819) – British novelist, journalist, poet and translator – Brother Jacob (1864)

Alexis Wright November 25 (b. 1950) – Australian (indigenous) novelist, short story writer – Carpentaria (2006)

Louisa May Alcott November 29 (b. 1832-1888) American novelist and poet-Little Women (1869), Little Men (1871), and Jo’s Boys (1886)

Lucy Maud Montgomery November 30 (b. 1874) – Canadian novelist – Anne of Green Gables (1908)

Mural, Musee D'Art, Palais De Toyko

Like Allende, might you now surrender to your familiar or new muse? 

Which author or poet "whispered" to you? Share a link to your book(s).

Curious? Find out more:

* Literary Birthdays Blog

* More information on these authors and poets.

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