“The first time I read As I Lay Dying, I was so awed I wanted to give up. I thought, "He's done it, perfectly. Why the hell am I trying?" But the failures of some of his black characters - the lack of imaginative vision regarding them, the way they don't display the full range of human emotion, how they fail to live fully on the page - work against that awe and goad me to write.” WritingInspirationImagination Book:Salvage the Bones Source: Salvage the Bones
“I wrote poetry in middle school and high school and even through college. It was bad. I just don't think I'm very good at writing poetry. I mean, the distillation, I think, is hard for me, but I love poetry.” ThinkingWritingMeanHardSchoolMiddleCollegeHigh SchoolVery GoodLove PoetryMiddle SchoolWriting PoetryDistillation Author:Jesmyn Ward
“When I decided to write about my brother and friends, I was attempting to answer the question why. Why did they all die like that? Why so many of them? Why so close together? Why were they all so young? Why, especially, in the kinds of places where we are from? Why would they all die back to back to back to back? I feel like I was writing my way towards an answer in the memoir.” WayFeelsWritingKindTogetherYoungDiesAnswersBrotherDecidedMemoirMy WayMy BrotherAttempting Author:Jesmyn Ward
“I've also never written about home in this way before. I guess a lot of it is subconscious and I am intuitively making these decisions when I'm writing. I wanted to communicate in the book that on one hand, being at home - both in our homes and in DeLisle - gives us a sense of belonging and family and safety, but at the same time, being in those places makes us less safe.” WayGivingWritingBookHomeHandsWantedDecisionWrittenSafeSafetyCommunicateBelongingSubconscious Author:Jesmyn Ward
“Through the process of specifically writing this memoir, there was so much reckoning that I had to do. It was very difficult. It doesn't erase anything that happened, but I think that it was healthy for me to do it. The teenage self-loathing that I suffered from all of a sudden found itself turned into rapids with my grief after my brother died. I turned it inwards. In the same way that my mom processes her grief and her problems. This project, as a memoir, has helped me funnel it outwards.” ThinkingWayWritingSelfProblemFoundProcessDifficultGriefHappenedBrotherMomHealthyProjectsDiedMy MomMemoirMy BrotherTeenageRapidsEraseLoathingSelf LoathingReckoningBrother DiedMy Brother Died Author:Jesmyn Ward
“When I was writing the memoir, every page was a battle with myself because I knew I had to tell the truth. That's what the memoir form demands. I also had to figure out how much of the truth do I tell, how do I make the truth as balanced as I possibly can? How do I make these people as complicated and as human and as unique and as multifaceted as I possibly can? For me, that was the way I attempted to counteract some of that criticism.” PeopleWayWritingHumansFormFiguresBattleDemandPagesUniqueCriticismComplicatedMemoirTelling The TruthBalanced Author:Jesmyn Ward
“I want each character to be as unique as possible. I want them to reflect something of who they are in the way that they move and in how their bodies work. That was foremost in my head when I was writing Salvage: I wanted every gesture, every little movement, to really carry meaning and communicate meaning to the reader. I was very conscious of that when I was writing.” WayWantWritingLittlesCharacterBodyWantedMovingMovementReaderUniqueConsciousCommunicateGesturesSalvageBody Work Author:Jesmyn Ward
“It felt like an indulgence. Going back was painful, but, at the same time, it was nice to live with them again for a few pages. I got to live with my brother again for the entire book. Of course as I'm writing the book, I'm getting closer and closer to the end and I know what that means. I knew exactly where I was heading. It was really difficult, but it was nice to make them come alive for those scenes. It was good.” KnowsWritingMeanBookEndsCoursesFeltDifficultNiceAliveBrotherScenePagesPainfulMy BrotherIndulgenceHeadings 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 think that voodoo as a spiritual tradition has been demonized for so long in popular culture. I wanted to write against that and write a character who practiced that spiritual tradition who was not evil and intent on creating zombies or causing pain through voodoo dolls or whatever.” ThinkingWritingLongCharacterPainSpiritualCultureEvilTraditionZombiePopular CultureVoodoo Author:Jesmyn Ward
“I wanted to write about voodoo tradition that I feel has been very important to survival of black people here: people of the African diaspora, people of this region, and throughout the south.” PeopleWritingImportantBlackSurvivalTraditionBlack PeopleVoodoo 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 not saying I have to write a book that's ten times better than my counterparts, but I do think that I have to concentrate my efforts on writing something that will really engage people's humanity and will tie readers to my characters regardless of race. I have to prove that I can connect with a wider audience.” ThinkingWritingBookCharacterHumanityEffortAudienceProve Author:Jesmyn Ward
“I'm writing about the things I see all around me. Growing up in Mississippi, I've seen how these backward ideas about class and race and healthcare and education and housing and racism impact everyday lives. For example, my mother wouldn't let me go to my homecoming dance because the yacht club where they were having the dance threw a fundraiser for David Duke, an ex-Klan member, when he was running for governor of Louisiana. So I grew up seeing how personal politics could be.” WritingRunningMotherGrowing UpRacismLet MeEverydayHealthcareEveryday LifeHomecomingYachtLet Me GoFundraiser Author:Jesmyn Ward
“In the past, I've felt like an outsider, with New York the center of everything literary, but right now, there are new opportunities being created that let us tell stories in the South, whether the medium is writing or TV or reality TV.” WritingRealityPastOpportunityOutsidersNew Opportunity Author:Jesmyn Ward
“There are things about the South - the politics, the classism, the racism - that I hate, and I want to be here to fight those things. I don't want to be in California or Michigan just complaining about them. I'm here trying to make a difference in the way I can, writing about it. And I want younger people, especially kids from my community, to see that being successful doesn't have to mean leaving a place like this. You don't have to trade in your family or your sense of belonging for that.” PeopleWritingTryingMeanKidsHateFightingCommunitySuccessfulRacismI HateTradeLeavingComplainingOur FamilyMaking A DifferenceBeing SuccessfulBelongingI Want YouClassism 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
“I feel like the kind of people I write about are the kind of people I grew up with, the families that I know in my community. Most everyone is working-class, and there are some intact families, but a lot of families aren't.” PeopleKnowsFeelsWritingKindCommunityClassGrewGrew UpWorking Class Author:Jesmyn Ward
“That's why I write fiction, because I want to write these stories that people will read and find universal.” PeopleWantWritingStoriesFictionUniversal Author:Jesmyn Ward
