Mitgliedoona

Recent favorite quotes:
"In writing memoir or personal essay, the trick, it seems to me, is to
establish a double perspective that will allow the reader to participate
vicariously in the experience as it was lived—let's say the confusions and
misapprehensions of the child one was—while conveying the sophisticated wisdom
of one's current self. This second perspective, the author's retrospective employment
of a more mature intelligence to interpret the past, is not merely an
obligation, but a privilege, an opportunity. And any autobiographical
narrative, whether memoir, personal essay, the heart of the matter often shines through
just those passages where the writer analyzes the meaning of his or her
experience. The quality of thinking, the depth of insight, and the willingness
to wrest as much understanding as a writer is humanly capable of arriving at.
These are guarantees to the reader that a particular author's sensibility is
trustworthy and simpatico.You know, we all have certain writers that we go to
again and again. We just like the way that they interpret the world." —Phillip Lopate

"Publishers frequently argue for the bottom quarter of their list — the books
that get the least marketing support and often sell the fewest copies.
That's 'where the major writers of the future usually start,' [Jonathan] Galassi
said. 'It's where much of the best writing is, the work of the odd,
uncooperative, intractable, pigheaded authors who insist on seeing and
saying things their own way and change the game in the process. The
"system" can only recognize what it's already cycled through. What's
truly new is usually indigestible at first.'" —NYT

Writer, editor, designer, teacher—and reader. With an MFA in nonfiction (Jan. 2001).