Friday, November 11, 2011

words of wisdom from Danielle Evans

Danielle Evans is SU's most recent visiting writer. She came on Monday for a Q&A session and reading, and she said some things that really stuck with me. Not to mention, she's a fantastic writer. I highly recommend her book of short stories, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. Contemporary, funny, sad, and her characters are so real.

Anyway, here are some of the things she said during her Q&A:

"You can't write from a space where you feel you owe people something."

"Reading and writing are both acts of intelligent empathy." (You don't necessarily have to go through the same things as your characters, but you need to find a way to understand them.)

"It (a short story) ends when you know the monster is under your bed, but you don't necessarily have to look at it."

She also talked about going to a writers colony, where all you do is write. ALL DAY. People bring you food, they even make your bed for you, all so you can focus on writing. Um, sign me up!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment