I know we’re kids’ writers, but when Harry Crews died recently, literature lost a true original. He was Southern Gothic. Very gothic. Think Flannery O’Connor on crank. Profane, disturbing, and truly strange, he wrote seventeen novels. A typical review said ” . . . not entirely satisfactory but memorable.” No kidding. In one, a man eats a car. We like our autos here in Southern California but not that much.

He taught creative writing and suggested writing every day, even if only for fifteen minutes. Sound familiar?
Legend has it he got up at 4:00 a.m. and prayed: “God, I’m not greedy. Just give me the next five hundred words.”
Obviously it worked for him.
RK