“The convention of the coming-of-age story and the love story were literally abandoned - because they had to be - and a new kind of coming-of-age and love story emerged that required a different kind of telling the story.” KindDifferentStoriesAgeAnd LoveLove StoryComing Of AgeAbandonedConventionsDifferent Kinds Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“To a certain extent that happens with all kinds of successful writers and artists and celebrities, but there is also something about the form of memoir that creates an eerie reader space of intimacy that is only "real" in the space of the text.” KindRealHappensFormArtistCertainSpaceSuccessfulReaderMemoirAll KindsIntimacyEerie Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“I get kind of tired of the "But it's your life!" attitude about memoir. I wrote. I engaged in artistic production. I made a piece of art. Why the preciousness or mystical unicorns around "memoir"? I'm curious how you feel about it just now.” FeelsKindArtMadeAttitudePiecesTiredProductionsMemoirCuriousArtisticEngagedMysticalHow You FeelUnicornLife Attitude Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“Every once in a while a messy character who manifests a REAL body emerges, for instance, Lisbeth Salander - and certainly commercial genre fiction is full of examples of real bodied sexual encounters or violence encounters - but for the most part, and particularly if you are a woman or minority author, your characters' bodies have to fit a kind of norm inside a narrow set of narrative pre-ordained and sanctioned scripts.” IfsKindRealCharacterBodyFictionViolenceExampleFitScriptsInstanceNarrativeGenreEncountersMinoritiesNormMessyLisbeth Salander Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“I'm kind of still down with Virg Woolf on this one: "women must kill the aesthetic ideal through which they themselves have been 'killed' into art."” KindHas BeensArtStillsIdealsAestheticOne WomanWoolf Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“The maternal impulse in animals to protect their young - that kind of instinct and subsequent violence is quite beautiful. Mythic even.” KindBeautifulYoungAnimalViolenceProtectInstinctImpulse Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“When a female character sets herself on fire in an effort to interrupt her culture's violent abuse of disenfranchised people, or physically tortures and punishes her guardian rapist, or picks up a gun and fights back in ways that make her not pretty, or aggressively rejects her role as the object of desire, or even when she waddles off into the woods to squat and have a baby without the safety and expertise of hospitals and doctors, these are the kinds of violences and stories we can learn from.” PeopleWayKindCharacterStoriesDesireCultureFightingEffortRolesFireViolenceObjectsBabyPicksGunFemaleDoctorsAbuseSafetyWoodsViolentTortureRejectsHospitalsGuardianExpertiseFemale CharactersSquatNot PrettyDisenfranchisedObjects Of Desire Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“Your life doesn’t happen in any kind of order. Events don’t have cause and effect relationships the way you wish they did. It’s all a series of fragments and repetitions and pattern formations. Language and water have this in common.” WayKindHappensOrderLanguageWishCausesWaterCommonEffectsEventsSeriesPatternsRepetitionFragmentsFormationCause And Effect Book:The Chronology of Water: A Memoir Source: The Chronology of Water: A Memoir
“People - I mean couples - don't like to talk much about fighting. It's not attractive. No one likes to admit it or describe it or lay claim to it. We want our coupledoms to look... sanitized and pretty and worthy of admiration. And anger blasts are ugly. But, I think that is a crock. There is a kind of fighting that isn't ugly. There is a way for anger to come our as an energy you let loose and away. The trick is to give it a form, and not a human target. The trick is to transform rage.” PeopleThinkingWayWantGivingHumansLooksKindMeanFormFightingEnergyCoupleClaimsLaysUglyWorthyRageTricksLikesAttractiveTargetAdmirationBlast Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
