Random House: PURPLE HIBISCUS is your first novel. What inspired you to write this book? Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: It came about organically and slowly; it was sparked by a mélange of things: my homesickness after first arriving in America to attend college (and the way I stubbornly romanticized my memories so that everything became fragrant—rain, [...]
Karen Moncrieff – from actor to screenwriter Karen Moncrieff worked for ten years as an actor, then became a screenwriter. In a Writers Guild magazine article, she notes “Writing felt so comfortable in a way that acting never really did. With writing, I was using all parts of myself, all of my skills.” She wrote [...]
The world is a poem As a poet, writer, playwright, director, and producer, Nathalie Handal articulates the primacy of words and experience in responding to an interview question about the inspiration for her poetry collection The Lives of Rain: “To me, the world is a poem, a poem I keep writing and re-writing. All that [...]
In spite of myself, my hunger to write continues. Like a rogue wave, determined to hold up the meaning of my life against the undertow of my culture, my past, and my family’s fundamentalism, it surges and ebbs. I want to trust it. To be carried into the deeper waters of the things I do [...]
[From article: Writer and subject coexist as Arbus, by Jay A. Fernandez, Los Angeles Times, Nov 8 2006; photo: Diane Arbus (1923-1971)] The birth of an artist Screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson says of her script for “Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus”: “What I wanted to do was to make a portrait of her [...]
video: AuthorViews: Susannah Breslin The author talks about her book, “You’re a Bad Man Aren’t You?” People “living on the edge” – the subject of her book – can be creatively inspiring, and help illuminate the multiple aspects of our own selves and psyches, especially those we may tend to suppress in order to be [...]
When we approach that blank canvas, empty stage or notebook paper in a state of curiousity, we’re truly opening the door to the muse – to our “inner artist”, our “higher power” and the creative flow of the universe. In “How to think like Leonardo da Vinci“, Michael Gelb tells us just how curious Leonardo [...]
“It’s compulsive behavior, writing a graphic novel. You’re not only sitting at your computer and writing, then you’re hunched over your drawing board like a monk. “Who would do that?” Alison Bechdel [Entertainment Weekly, June 9 2006] photo from her site: dykestowatchoutfor.com her book: Fun Home : A Family Tragicomic > related article: In Praise [...]
Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer by Peter Turchi “This book is a fascinating find. It’s all about the ways in which writing and mapmaking are similar, and the intersections between maps and books. It’s dense, but a fascinating read.” Marney K. Makridakis – from an issue of her Artellagram newsletter – see [...]
Writers spend so much time trying to determine when they will be a “real” writer. Just like the stereotype that all accountants wear green eyeshades, the stereotypes about writers persist whether they are accurate or not. > from article Personality Traits of a Real Writer – by Julie Hood [image: Winona Ryder as Jo in [...]
In a brief autobiography, Butler described herself simply: “I’m comfortably asocial – a hermit in the middle of a large city, a pessimist if I’m not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive.” At the age of 4 she created stories about a magical [...]
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place… Something more will arise for later, something better. … Assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. [...]
What motivates for one person may not motivate another. … But motivation is an essential ingredient for your success. Ask yourself, why do you want to write that book? What good will come of it? Both for yourself, and for others. Now, expand on that good. Specifically what will it mean? How will your life [...]
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