“I think my love for books sprang from my need to escape the world I was born into, to slide into another where words were straightforward and honest, where there was clearly delineated good and evil, where I found girls who were strong and smart and creative and foolish enough to fight dragons, to run away from home to live in museums, to become child spies, to make new friends and build secret gardens.” ThinkingWorldNeedsChildrenBookEnoughHomeRunningGirlFightingEvilFoundStrongBornSecretCreativeHonestSmartGardenFoolishGood And EvilDragonsMuseumsRunning AwaySpySlidesStraightforwardNew FriendsAway From HomeSecret Garden Author:Jesmyn Ward
“I came to the realization that I had failed in some respects because I had been more of a benevolent narrator than the world I saw reflected around me, and in the lives of the people in my community, and in my family. There was no benevolent God sparing us pain and loss and grief and struggle. If I was going to continue to write about the place where I am from, and the kind of people who live in my community and who are in my family, I owed it to them to be honest with what our lives are like.” PeopleWorldWritingKindPainCommunityLossGriefStruggleHonestMy FamilyRealizationBeing HonestBenevolent Author:Jesmyn Ward
“I feel like if you aren't honest and if you don't let go and ease up off of the narrator, then the story doesn't take up a life of its own, and the characters can't take up a life of their own. You handicap the story when you try to protect your characters.” TryingCharacterHonestProtectLetting Go Author:Jesmyn Ward
“I felt like if I didn't write about what happened to the young men here in the South of America, the same things would keep occurring. Here in the South, young black men just keep dying - young black women, too. I couldn't live with myself if I hadn't been as honest as possible about that.” MenWritingBlackHonestDyingBlack Women Author:Jesmyn Ward
