“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
“When you have a family, even though you might move a lot, you collect all of these things. It's the detritus of your family and they become the symbols of your family life, and your unit out in the world. In that moment I wanted to allude to the fact that the way my parents' relationship was falling apart was impacting me and my brother, my parents, but also our symbols.” WorldWayMomentsFactsMightWantedMovingFallParentBrotherSymbolsOur FamilyMy BrotherThat MomentUnitsFalling ApartFamily Life 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 hope that if the people who read my work encounter people in the real world who are like the characters that I write about, that maybe that might make them feel empathy for those people. I know it sounds idealistic in a way, but I do hope that my work maybe changes some minds, and that my work makes readers see people as human that maybe before they read my work they might not have seen as humans, and those people include me and my family and my kids, people in my community.” PeopleWorldWritingMindRealCharacterKidsCommunityEmpathyMy FamilyReal World Author:Jesmyn Ward
“I'm a failed poet. Reading poetry helps me to see the world differently, and I try to infuse my prose with figurative language, which goes against the trend in fiction.” WorldTryingHelpingReadingLanguageFictionPoetProseHelp MeTrendsReading Poetry Author:Jesmyn Ward
