“In terms of writing, I think what most fiction writers treasure more than anything is the feeling that they're living for the length of a book inside another person.” ThinkingWritingPersonsBookFeelingsTermFictionTreasureLengthFiction Writers Author:Lauren Groff
“While writing, writers are living inside a character or characters, and when the book ekes into the world, writers are living inside the reader. That's more than connecting.” WorldWritingBookCharacterReaderConnecting Author:Lauren Groff
“As soon as you publish a book and the reader reads it, they're making an extension of your brain with their brain.” BookBrainPublish Author:Lauren Groff
“I'm an anxious person in general, but something about being pregnant and awaiting the release of my first book, The Monsters Of Templeton, made me into an insane anxious person. I didn't sleep at night. I ended up sleeping all day. In a strange way I felt like the world was going to end. I found myself so deeply depressed at times that I started to read about happiness, and that took me into books about idealism and utopianism. Reading books about people who tried to build utopian societies of different kinds gave me a kind of lift.” PeopleWorldKindBookDifferentNightReadingSleepStrangeInsaneAnxiousDifferent KindsReading BooksPregnantIdealismUtopian Author:Lauren Groff
“I think attempting to make art is a utopian process in itself, definitely. Nothing I do is ever equal to the ideas in my head. You do the best you can, you do it with patience and love, and then you give up. The moment you give up is when you know the book is done.” ThinkingGivingArtBookDoneMomentsEqualGiving UpArt IsUtopian Author:Lauren Groff
“I've always relied on producing more material than I need. With each of my published novels I've written around four times the amount of material that's ended up in the book.” BookNovel Author:Lauren Groff
“When I write a new draft, I don't like to feel I'm tied to any previous version. That's why I don't use a computer to write. The text looks, on the screen, too much like a book. It's not a book - it's a bad first draft of something that could one day be a book.” WritingBookOne DayComputer Author:Lauren Groff
“I feel like in American fiction we're moving out of a period of intense irony, and I'm very glad about that. I feel like irony is fine for its own sake but shouldn't be the sole reason to write a book. It has been an ironic world view: that's the best way I can describe it. I'm a fan of earnestness. I feel like there's a new wave of earnestness and I'd be happy if I'm some small part of that.” WorldWritingBookReasonMovingWaveGladIntenseIronyIronicWorld ViewEarnestnessMoving Out Author:Lauren Groff
“I don't believe that fiction is dead. I know there are some people who believe that it's an outdated art form, and that to express truth today you need to work in different forms, to write books where it's perhaps not clear what's fiction and what's memoir. I have nothing against those books and love many of them very much. But we have enough space for everyone, traditional realists and hybrid writers, and experimental writers all.” PeopleWritingBelieveArtBookDifferentEnoughTodayMemoirRealistHybrid Author:Lauren Groff
“The gender inequality in book reviewing isn't getting better. Male authors get the majority of review coverage, and male reviewers do most of the reviewing. It's kind of devastating.” KindBookGenderInequalityGet BetterBook Review Author:Lauren Groff
“I can say that if you're a writer who happens to be a woman, you'll get a book cover that depicts a woman with no head, or a woman turning away, or a pair of high heels. You have to fight to not get stuck with these covers. In the U.S. women are chick-lit writers unless they prove otherwise, and that's frustrating.” BookFightingProveStuckHeelsFrustrating Author:Lauren Groff
“I like people, I really do. I like meeting people. But most of the time I would rather be at home reading a book than reading in a bookstore. It's a performance, and it ends up being all right, and then you have a nice shot of bourbon afterwards, and it's all good. I want to please people. I want to be nice. I want to be liked. As a result I say yes to everything. But it takes a lot of vital energy out of me.” PeopleBookHomeReadingEnergyNiceMeetingsBeing NiceBourbon Author:Lauren Groff
“I think I'm an optimistic person. Ultimately I believe in people. I believe they can be robust. When my collection Delicate Edible Birds came out there were one or two people who read the title as being a commentary on the characters within the pages, the women in the book, meaning that they were these fragile girls meant for male consumption. But I had meant the opposite - these people are tough. Dark things happen to them but they get on with life as best they can.” PeopleThinkingBelieveBookCharacterGirlI BelieveDarkBirdToughThings HappenOptimisticDelicate Author:Lauren Groff
“When I was small and easily wounded books were my carapace. If I were recalled to my hurts in the middle of a book they somehow mattered less. My corporeal life was slight the dazzling one in my head was what really mattered. Returning to books was coming home.” IfsBookHomeHurtMiddleComing HomeWoundedDazzling Book:The Monsters of Templeton Source: The Monsters of Templeton
“I have a feeling that books are a lot like people - they change as you age, so that some books that you hated in high school will strike you with the force of a revelation when you're older.” PeopleBookFeelingsAgeSchoolForceHigh SchoolStrikesHatedRevelations Author:Lauren Groff
