"I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions."
     -- Letter from Zora Neale Hurston to Countee Cullen

I was shocked and amazed and as pleased as punch when, earlier this month, on the late Zora Neale Hurston's birthday and for a few days afterwards, she trended on Twitter.

Even though Hurston is without doubt one of the most important African American authors of the 20th century, with four novels and over 50 published short stories, essays, and plays to her name, the notion that a woman born in 1891 and dead in 1960 would be recognized to that degree on a piece of social media completely fueled by what's new and what's now (and the likes of out-of-control youth) is kind of crazy . With the truly odd and questionable things that the general populace deems "popular" these days, to say that this was unexpected is an understatement. 

Thank God for small miracles.

For those of you out there who are Hurston enthusiasts, the annual ZORA! Festival in Eatonville, Florida, turns 25 this year, kicks off tomorrow, and goes through February 2. The schedule is jam-packed, and Lynn Whitfield, Avery Brooks, and Frankie Beverly and Maze will be joining in the festivities.

Hurston passed away from stroke and heart complications just six months before I was born. So, I'm thankful that events like the ZORA! Festivals keep her legacy and the Harlem Renaissance alive for us to enjoy today.

I've ordered the 75th anniversary edition of the classic Their Eyes Were Watching God in paperback. It's past time that I read it.

It's because I still believe in the stories and fairy tales from my childhood that I get such joy breathing life into my own characters. My critique-mate Jennie Mayes shared this with me, and so I'm sharing it with you.

The Guardian Life & Style/Family 8/23/2013 -- By Jon Henley

Philip Pullman: 'Loosening the chains of the imagination'

The author, whose His Dark Materials trilogy alone has been translated into 40 languages and sold millions, talks about what children look for in stories

"If you want your children to be intelligent," Albert Einstein once remarked, "read them fairytales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairytales." It is a sentiment with which Philip Pullman heartily agrees. Which is as well, because his latest bestseller is a highly acclaimed and high-voltage retelling of 50 Grimm brothers fairytales.

"Fairy stories," Pullman says, sitting on the sofa in his comfortable Oxfordshire farmhouse, "loosen the chains of the imagination. They give you things to think with – images to think with – and the sense that all kinds of things are possible. While at the same time being ridiculous or terrifying or consolatory. Or something else altogether, as well."

Not everyone of a scientific bent would, he concedes, necessarily concur. Richard Dawkins, for one, has said he is not at all sure of the effect on children of "bringing them up to believe in spells and wizards and magic wands and things turning into other things". It is all "very unscientific", Dawkins frets.

But Pullman, who is not only one of our greatest authors, for children and adults – His Dark Materials has sold more than 15m copies and been translated into 40 languages – but also a writer whose work teems with the paraphernalia of the folktale (witches, daemons, talking animals, magical objects), is firmly with Einstein. "Dawkins is wrong to be anxious," he says. "Frogs don't really turn into princes. That's not what's really happening. It's 'Let's pretend'; 'What if'; that kind of thing. It's completely harmless. On the contrary, it's helpful and encouraging to the imagination."

We are talking, a couple of weeks before the release of the paperback edition of the author's Grimm Tales for Young and Old, about fairy stories, and wondering just what it is about them that explains their enduring appeal for the young and the not-so-young. Later, the talk turns to stories in general, and why the reading and the telling of them is so extraordinarily important for children and their families. But first, fairytales. What makes them so special? (Continue reading on The Guardian)