Mightier Than The Sword
A Life Worth Living
Thoughts Along The Way
The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde
Wilder Still
Dorothy Parker: A Sense of Mirth
Cyrano de Bergerac
The Music Of Words
Shannon I

The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword




This site showcases words by master wordsmiths. The links (shown on the left) serve as a table of contents. There is some great stuff here. Enjoy browsing.

The collection of course, is entirely subjective and eclectic. These are things I simply have either run across, or know and value.

They are just the sort of thing that shows the marvelous things words can do.

With smiles and tears and frowns and laughter, all of which you might find here...

From Kate

The last page should not be interpreted as part of the Masters' collection. This page contains work of mine and perhaps came tumbling onto this site in a hope that association with truly great writers might impart to me a wee bit of magic... or certainly inspiration.

 

I am Kate Shannon, and this is my fun site.  I am a former schoolmarm, now a free-lance editor.  Would you like to know more? Click the link to your right.

Share with the kids!

There is more dynamic power to change things, to create things, to achieve things, with well wrought words than in any weapon of war, from a Crusader's sword, to Nagasaki.


Well wrought? We do not acquire that skill by memorizing word lists. We do not acquire an ear for the rhythm and music of language without becoming attuned to it. Seeing it. Hearing it.

Reading is the best... the only... true education. And not just in language, but in all subjects: History, the Arts, and, yes, the Sciences, too.

Teachers are facilitators; but we TEACH ourselves.

It doesn't matter what we read. Anything that captivates will do. It can be "trash" in some people's eyes; if it holds our attention and keeps us engrossed, we are absorbing words and their cadence. And, by osmosis, information.

And if one keeps reading, odd things happen.

Your IQ goes up (yes, trust me, it happens by as much as 20 or more points over a few years). Your discrimination about what you read becomes sharpened, more selective. Your tastes change, become more sophisticated.

Your speed of reading will increase, may double, even triple in some cases. Perhaps most exciting, you become a better writer, a better speaker. Sentences just fall nicely from your lips, or your keyboard, with a rich and appropriate vocabulary.

Read for fun. Read to relax. Read to lose yourself for a while from problems and anxieties. But READ.

Please visit me.

Give a child within your purview... your own offspring, a nephew or niece, a neighbor youngster... the greatest of gifts! A love of reading.

Start by reading aloud to him when he is two or three, adjusting for his attention span.

When he attends school... (and this is tough!) let him read aloud to you at least five to 10 minutes a day (more as he grows older).

When he is older still, try a family reading night, with adults and kids reading aloud to the others from a favorite book. And yes! TV firmly OFF!

(heh heh, this is your chance to introduce classics: Charles Dickens, Scenes from Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott ~ great read-aloud stuff, written with the word sounds in mind. You may like some excerpts to be found on this site!)

Get those kids hooked on "Gosh, what is going to happen next!"