I Have Been Nominated for the Liebster Award!

Lemuel Lyes over at History Geek has seen fit to nominate my little blog for the Liebster Award, an award created by Matthew Wright who runs a fantastic blog about publishing, writing tips and general history of New Zealand.  Lemuel has a great blog about being a history buff and posts many articles about historical topics that are quite interesting.  He asked three questions of me which I will answer below:

1. Which historical figure most inspires you and why?

As far as earthly people who inspire me from history, I would have to mention David Brainerd (1718-1747).  Brainerd was the fiancee of Jonathan Edwards’s daughter, and also an exemplary Christian in all sense of the word.  When John Wesley was anxious to preserve the zeal of his people, he put to his leaders this question: ‘What can be done to revive the work of God where it is decayed?’ answering it with the emphatic counsel, ‘Let every preacher read carefully over the life of David Brainerd.’  The man was a selfless missionary to the native americans, not trying to change their culture, but living with them, accepting their customs, and writing about every detail of his life and walk with Jesus.  He is probably the most selfless person I have ever read about or may ever read about.  A book about his life can be found here.

2:  Which authors have you enjoyed reading recently?

My favorites fluctuate, as any good writer should experience, but lately my favorite writers have been and always will be Charles Portis, who wrote True Grit, Norwood, Dogs of the South, Gringos and Masters of Atlantis.  I recently finished reading the final book (not in any particular order) and feel that Portis is indeed one of the unsung masters of prose of the 20th century.  His prose is quirky, unique and he doesn’t judge his characters at all.  Nearly all of his novels are journey stories, and thereby are somewhat spiritual in nature.  Check him out.  No one (at least no one I know) who has read him has been sorry they did.

3:  If you could live or relive any decade of the twentieth century then which would you choose and why?

This is a tough question, simply because I am a student of history and know the difficult struggles that each decade of the 20th century faced.  The first 48 years of that century were plagued by war, disease and the Great Depression.  The 50’s had its share of war and  bigotry and self-denial, not to mention McCarthy.  The turbulent ’60’s and on into the ’70’s were the struggles of civil rights, Vietnam, and lines at the gas pumps.  The ’80’s were an era of excess and greed and selfish behavior.  The ’90’s culminated in some of the great world movements such as the death of Apartheid, the falling of the Berlin Wall and an end to the Cold War but also Columbine, corporate corruption, and AIDs.  Possibly the decade I would choose would be the early 1960’s.  I guess I would have liked to have been there when The Beatles arrived on the plane from Liverpool.  I would have been a beat poet.

I will ask the following questions of the three bloggers I am about to nominate:

1.  What is your definition of a tortured soul and how does this definition relate to your body of work?

2.  If you were to sit under the tutelage of any great writer of history, who would that be and why?

3.  Discuss your personal view about writing and what it means to you.

I will nominate the following blogs.  Please check them out.  These writers are indeed working hard.

Josh Mosey

Lisa K. Winkler – Cycling Grandma

Marc Schuster