A Writer Can be Anyone or Anything

A Writer Can be Anyone or Anything A Writer Can be Anyone or Anything A Writer Can be Anyone or Anything By Maeve Maddox I attended a writers workshop session at which a minor, but much-published author warned participants against creating POV (point of view) characters of the opposite sex. According to her writing philosophy, a woman writer should create only female POV characters and men, male POV characters. Thats not to say that the POV characters cant interact with characters of the opposite sex. Her books contain characters of both sexes. She just insists that POV must be limited to the gender and general life experiences of the writer. A woman whose only work experience has been that of office work, for example, has no business writing from the POV of a male brain surgeon. I reacted strongly against her attempt to place such an extraordinary limitation on writers of fiction. Restricting writers to the POV of persons only like themselves makes as much sense as it would to restrict readers to reading books about characters most like themselves. The whole point of creating fiction is to enable people to expand their experience of life. In the writers imagination there is neither male nor female. Some writers will enter into alternate minds better than others, but the success of the attempt will depend upon talent and technique, not gender. The following successful titles wouldnt exist if their authors had followed such a limiting dictum as write only from your own point of view and personal experience: Silas Marner by George Eliot (Marian Evans) woman writing from POV of poor male weaver Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden American man writing from Japanese womans POV A Great Deliverance, By Elizabeth George American woman writing from British male detectives POV And Id be especially sorry never to have read these books in which the authors cross the species barrier to tell their great and moving stories: Watership Down by Richard Adams Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson Black Beauty by Anna Sewell Gayneck the Pigeon by Dhan Gopal Mukerji Bambi by Felix Salten Charlottes Web by E.B. White (Yes, I cried when a spider died.) Hurray for the writers imagination! Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Fiction Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:30 Religious Terms You Should Know40 Synonyms for â€Å"Different†Preposition Mistakes #3: Two Idioms

How to Find the Cygnus Constellation

How to Find the Cygnus Constellation The star pattern astronomers know as Cygnus appears high in the sky beginning in July and is still visible late in the year. Its central area is cross-shaped, and that asterism within the constellation is called the Northern Cross. It is one of three constellations that lends a star to the asterism called the Summer Triangle, which is another stargazing feature that is high in the skies during northern hemisphere summer. For gazers in the southern hemisphere who can spot this region of the sky, its a winter constellation.  Its visible to much (but not all) of the southern hemisphere. The Summer Triangle and the constellations that lend their stars to it. Carolyn Collins Petersen How to Find Cygnus Locating Cygnus –  sometimes called The Swan – is fairly easy thanks to the shape of the Northern Cross at its center. If you are in the northern hemisphere, look for the constellation during late July, when it should be almost directly overhead. Once you spot the cross shape, look for the remaining elements of the constellation, which resemble the wings, beak and tail of the swan. The constellation Cygnus with Deneb at the tail of the swan (top) and Albireo (the double star) at the nose of the swan (bottom). Carolyn Collins Petersen The History of Cygnus The starry shape of Cygnus the Swan has long been known to stargazers. This constellation is one of the original 48 constellations of antiquity. The ancient Greeks featured it in many of their legends. Zeus, king of the gods, turned himself into a swan to attract the attention of a maiden named Leda. In another story, a musician and prophet named Orpheus was murdered, and his memory was honored by placing him and his lyre into the sky near Cygnus.   This star pattern was also familiar to stargazers in China, India, and the Polynesian Islands. The bright stars were used as wayfinding guideposts for travelers. The Stars of the Cygnus Constellation The brightest stars in Cygnus are Deneb (also known as alpha Cygni) and Albireo (also called beta Cygni), which resemble the tail and the beak of the swan, respectively. Albireo is a famous double star that can be spotted using binoculars or a small telescope. The stars have different coloration: one has a bright golden color, while the other has a bluish tint. Albireo, the double star in the nose of Cygnus the Swan, can be easily seen through binoculars or a small telescope.   Courtesy N.B., via Wikimedia Commons, Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 license. Cygnus has a great many variable- and multiple-star systems within its boundaries. Thats because it lies in the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. Stargazers with access to dark skies can often spot a glow that resembles clouds in the region around Cygnus. The glow comes from the millions of stars that lie in the galaxy, and is often referred to as a star cloud.   Astronomers studied the Cygnus region using the Kepler Space Telescope in the search for planets around other stars. They found that the Cygnus constellation has more than a hundred stars that harbor planets, all within about three thousand light-years of the Sun. Some of those stars have multiple planetary systems.  Ã‚   The official IAU constellation star chart for Cygnus the Swan. IAU/Sky Publishing.  Ã‚   Deep Sky Objects in Constellation Cygnus The locations of several deep-sky objects in Cygnus. Carolyn Collins Petersen   Cygnus has several fascinating deep-sky objects within its boundaries. The first, Cygnus X-1, is a binary system, with a black hole slurping up material from a companion star. The system gives off massive amounts of x-rays as the material spirals around the black hole. While it is not possible to see the system without a telescope, its still fascinating to know its there. The constellation also contains many clusters and beautiful nebulae, the most famous of which is the North America Nebula (also known as NGC 7000). Through binoculars, it appears as a faint glow. Dedicated stargazers can also search out the Veil Nebula, which is a huge remnant left over from a supernova explosion that took place more than five thousand years ago.   The North America Nebula is a favorite target for astrophotographers. It has the shape of the North American continent. Through a telescope, it doesnt look this colorful, but long-exposure photographs bring out details and colors of the different gases.   Luc Viatour/https://lucniz.be.   Used with permission under a Creative Commons Attributi