The book that first made me want to be a writer is Flannery O'Connor's short story collection 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find.'
I've seen everything from 'Wicked' to 'The Book Of Mormon,' and I don't make any bones of the fact that I love both. But 'Les Mis' is not only my favorite musical, but it's also my favorite story. I love the book, which I read as a kid, and I identified so much with Jean Valjean.
I've been asked several times since the book Love and Trouble came out, "Are you still sad?" And I'm not, not in the way I was before. I do feel like it was a season in hell that I passed through. But now I'm in despair and sad and confused every day because of our political situation. So the question is: Is it harder or easier to be sad with a reason?
There's a jean for everyone. And I'm a fan of that. I love a jean, and I love all these spins on them. I love a printed Balmain jean, or a Givenchy, and I love the prints, I love that you can have so much fun with it all, you know, dressing up.
Teach her story to future generations, and at least the moral debt owed to Jean McConville can be repaid. Jean McConville. Jean McConville. Jean McConville.
I decided to make myself a little less precious with my storytelling. I think you can see from the first three pieces in the book that I have a long term relationship with the short story as a form and I really love an elegantly crafted story that has several elements that come together in a way that is emotionally complex and different from when we started. That kind of crystalline, perfect, idealized thing that the short story as a genre has come to represent.
Anne Wiazemsky wrote two books about her life with Jean-Luc Godard between 1966 and 1969. And I first read the second one, which is about the fall of their love story and their marriage. I immediately thought there was a movie to make with this book because it was so funny, and I thought the love story was very, very touching.
I like to envision the creation of a short story collection as being like putting together a jazz album. Yes, there's logic and literary structures imposed by me, but at the same time, all the tracks are shaped and ordered in a much more improvisational manner. The guiding principle for me is whether or not a story adds a layer or texture to the overall collection.
I love things that are old and beautiful and tell a story, even if it's a sad one.
You can write when you're dyslexic, you just can't read it. But I started writing short stories as a child and I found the short story format a real nice one. I love short stories and I love short documentaries or short films of any kind.
I have a book in the pipeline of short stories. You want to hear an agent scream, say 'I'm thinking about doing a collection of short stories set in the Ozarks.'
I have a book in the pipeline of short stories. You want to hear an agent scream, say 'I'm thinking about doing a collection of short stories set in the Ozarks.
'Drown' was always a hybrid book. It's connected stories - partially a story collection but partially a novel. I always wanted the reader to decide which genre they thought the book belonged to more - story, novel, neither, both.
A short-story collection is harder to formulate pithy sentences about.
Thats beautiful! Sad and beautiful," murmured Meggie. Why were sad stories often so beautiful? It was different in real life.
I started writing the book without realizing I was writing a book. That sounds stupid, but it's true. I'd been trying and failing to make a different manuscript work, and I thought I was just taking a break by writing some short stories. I'm not a very good short story writer - the amazing compression that is required for short stories doesn't come easily to me. But anyway, I thought I'd try to write some short stories. And a structure took shape - I stumbled upon it.