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Debra Dean Quotes

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Debra Dean is a renowned author known for her unique writing style and deeply engaging themes.

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Famous Debra Dean Quotes

“Whatever we know as children, this is the world, eaten whole and without question.”

Childhood

Book:The Mirrored World

Source: The Mirrored World

“Peculiar as I was, and remain, I was trained to be practical. I'm still amazed at the radical temerity of my friends, you included, Julie, who choose poetry as their vocation. I envy your faith.”

Stills My Friends Envy Practicals Radical Peculiar Amazed Vocation

Author:Debra Dean

“I figured that to be a writer I would need to have been born in the nineteenth century, be British, or have three names. So I turned my sights elsewhere . . . to acting.”

Needs Has Beens Three Names Born Acting Century Sight British Elsewhere Nineteenth Century

Author:Debra Dean

“Practicality continues to be a challenge for me - it's at odds with being an artist. I actually had a career on stage in New York - not a brilliant career or I'd still be doing it - but I got enough work to keep my agent and my union health insurance.”

Stills Enough Artist Challenges Careers Stage New York Unions Brilliant Agents Odds Being An Artist Practicality

Author:Debra Dean

“When I left the theatre and turned to writing, one of the big pulls was that, unlike the theatre, I didn't have to wait to be hired before I could do my art. That was huge. But you still have to figure out how to support your habit; it's rare and lucky when art pays the bills.”

Writing Art Stills Bigs Left Waiting Pay Support Figures Huge Habit Lucky Bills Theatre

Author:Debra Dean

“Along the way, I've worked as a waitress, I've done phone surveys, and worked as a receptionist, and for the last twenty years I've taught. When I was an actor, the key was to find a job that kept your days free to audition.”

Way Years Done Jobs Lasts Actors Taught Keys Twenties Phones Auditions Surveys Waitress Receptionists

Author:Debra Dean

“As a writer, the ideal job is the one that allows you time and mental space away from it. Teaching seemed to me like the obvious choice - those summers off, you know - but my experience may serve as a cautionary tale.”

Knows May Jobs Choices Space Teaching Summer Ideals Obvious Tales Cautionary Tales

Author:Debra Dean

“Before I got my present job, I spent many years teaching writing part-time, so-called, at community colleges and universities. It's academia's version of migrant labor.”

Writing Years Jobs Community Teaching College Labor University Versions Academia Migrants Part Time Colleges And Universities Community College Teaching Writing

Author:Debra Dean

“I worked every waking minute, nights and weekends, in order to make enough money to buy those summers off, and even then we wouldn't have made it except that my mother helped out with a yearly check and my father bought me a car when my old one die”

Made Enough Mother Night Order Dies Father Minutes Car Summer Checks Made It Waking Weekend

Author:Debra Dean

“If you have some other profession that allows you your evenings or weekends, terrific, stick with that. Having a profession other than writing also has the potential side benefit of providing you with material, something to write about.”

Ifs Writing Sides Materials Benefits Sticks Profession Evening Weekend Providing Terrific

Author:Debra Dean

“I tell my students, if you're interested in marine biology or llama farming, follow that string. Yes, it will probably take you a longer time to write that book, but it's not a race. That's another great thing about being a writer: you don't age out.”

Ifs Writing Book Age Race Students Great Things Biology Strings Marine Farming Marine Biology Llamas

Author:Debra Dean

“Whatever one may say about the perils of workshops, they help writers internalize an awareness of audience.”

May Helping Audience Awareness Peril Workshops

Author:Debra Dean

“I loved short stories, and they were all I wanted to write. I love the compression of them and the exactitude needed to get a whole world into such a small space.”

World Writing Whole Stories Wanted Space Needed Whole World Short Story Small Spaces Compression Exactitude

Author:Debra Dean

“I think I was also afraid of the novel. I write line by line, proceeding at snail's pace, rewriting as I go and paring the excess away. This is against all the best advice for writing long form prose, and I have tried over the years to break myself of the habit, but I can't bear to leave anything ungainly on the page and half the fun for me is that tinkering. So the length of a novel was a daunting prospect.”

Thinking Writing Years Long I Can Form Fun Lines Half Break Novel Advice Bears Habit Pages Prose Length Pace Excess Proceeding Best Advice All The Best Rewriting Snail Tinkering

Author:Debra Dean

“I kept writing short stories and sending out my manuscript, and it kept coming back like a bad penny. It was rejected all over town, quite often in very complimentary terms, but rejected nonetheless. Agents would return it saying that they loved it but didn't think they could sell it, or they would ask if I could change the collection into linked stories.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Stories Asks Term Return Towns Sells Agents If I Could Collections Short Story Rejected Linked Coming Back Pennies Manuscripts Writing Short Writing Short Stories

Author:Debra Dean

“Once I had started, I discovered the secret pleasure of writing a novel. It's such an immersive, deep commitment. With short stories, you're continually having to start again from scratch, but with a novel you only need one good idea every few years.”

Needs Writing Years Ideas Stories Pleasure Secret Novel Commitment Short Story Good Ideas Scratches

Author:Debra Dean

“The trajectory of my writing has moved further and further away from autobiography. My first stories in Confessions of a Falling Woman worked familiar territory - places I had lived, people I knew, my life as an actor in New York - and many were prompted by or grounded in personal experience.”

People Writing Firsts Stories Fall Actors New York Moved Familiar Territory Confession Autobiography Grounded Personal Experiences Trajectory

Author:Debra Dean

“If you had told me twenty years ago that I would write a novel set in Russia, much less two, I simply wouldn't have believed you. I had no familiarity with Russia or its history, but part of what drives me as a reader, and more and more as a writer, is curiosity, the desire to explore unfamiliar terrain and inhabit alternate lives.”

Ifs Writing Years Two Desire Novel Reader Years Ago Twenties Curiosity Russia Familiarity Unfamiliar Terrain

Author:Debra Dean

“With the historical fictions, I was already doing so much research, and so much of the stories was anchored by historical truth that the move to nonfiction didn't feel all that dramatic - just another half-step to the right.”

Feels Stories Moving Half Fiction Steps Research Historical Dramatic Historical Fiction Nonfiction Historical Truth

Author:Debra Dean

“If anything, I've found nonfiction a little easier. You don't have to make anything up. Of course, that's the inherent difficulty as well: when you hit an information black hole, you don't get to make it up. That hasn't come up too often with this project though. I'm lucky to have tons of primary source material , reams of letters and diaries and memoirs.”

Ifs Wells Littles Courses Found Black Information Materials Source Easier Lucky Projects Letters Difficulty Come Up Holes Memoir Primaries Nonfiction Inherent Diaries Black Hole Primary Source

Author:Debra Dean

“That requires quite an imaginative leap because it's hard for me to imagine that my biography would be of much interest to anyone, and because I'm a fairly private person, the notion doesn't appeal to me.”

Persons Hard Would Be Interest Imagine Notion Appeals Leap Imagine That Biographies Imaginative My Biography

Author:Debra Dean

“One of the nice things about moving from acting to writing is that your work can be in the public eye without having to be in the public eye yourself. I guess that's not completely true. If you're lucky - and I have been - there are book tours and lectures. I don't have stage fright, and I enjoy meeting people, so that's easy and enjoyable, but it's not a constant, and it's not celebrity.”

People Ifs Writing Has Beens Book Eye Moving Easy Enjoy Acting Nice Stage Lucky Constant Meetings Lectures Enjoyable Nice Things Fright Public Eye Stage Fright

Author:Debra Dean

“Unless you're Stephen King or Joyce Carol Oates, no one's going to recognize you on the street, and you're promoting your book, not yourself.”

Book Streets Kings Promoting Carols Joyce

Author:Debra Dean

“I just can't fathom tweeting, and I'd rather spend my time writing a book than a blog, but I rather grudgingly agreed to a Facebook page. I had a brief, intense romance with Facebook. It's weirdly addictive, but anything that time-sucking is a danger for a writer who writes as slowly as I do. Now I post only occasionally and nothing very confessional. I think I'm carbon dating myself as I speak.”

Thinking Writing Book Romance Speak Danger Pages Dating Intense Posts My Time Carbon Blogs Writing A Book Fathom Facebook Page

Author:Debra Dean

“I haven't written anything yet that makes me think, This is it! and I don't imagine I ever will. I don't know how it is with you, but when I finish something, even when I'm pleased with the results, it never quite matches the shimmering vision that was out ahead of me as I wrote.”

Thinking Knows Results Vision Know How Imagine Written Havens Never Quit

Author:Debra Dean

“I always think, OK, this is good, but I'll do it better next time. "And so we beat on, boats against the current. . ." It may not be the recipe for a life of contentment, but that imperfectability is what makes writing such an engaging endeavor, something you can do for the rest of your life and not get bored.”

Thinking Writing May Next Can Do Beats Currents Boat Bored Contentment Endeavor Next Time Engaging Recipes Rest Of Your Life

Author:Debra Dean

“You're unusual. That's better than popular if you have some courage.”

Ifs Unusual

Book:The Madonnas of Leningrad: A Novel

Source: The Madonnas of Leningrad: A Novel

About the Author

Known for: Author
Quotes: 27

Books & Sources

The Madonnas of Leningrad: A NovelRelated source material

The Mirrored WorldRelated source material

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