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Malinda Lo Biography

Writer

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“This is what I’ve learned: The art is greater than you and your feelings. You have to serve it. It is not you. Some people will never understand that, but you need to surround yourself with people who do understand it. And you need to understand it yourself. Whatever you’re creating may come from within you and your life, but then—almost like a child, it comes out of your body and it grows up and walks away. It walks away and affects other people you don’t know and have never met. That’s the beauty of it, and the reason I keep trying new things. You never know who it will effect.”

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Book:A Scatter of Light
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“Traditional murder mysteries are interesting because they're ostensibly about a horrible thing - murder - but underneath that, they're about restoring order to a messed-up world. By the end of a whodunit, the detective has taken the reader through all the reasons why this terrible thing happened. Through that explanation, and by seeing the killer captured, the reader feels a sense of catharsis.”

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Author:Malinda Lo
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“I find it interesting that authors of fantasy and science fiction novels are rarely asked if their books are based on their personal experiences, because all writing is based on personal experience. I may not have gone on an epic quest through a haunted forest, but the feelings in my books are often based on feelings I've had. Real-life events, in fantasy and science fiction, can take on metaphorical significance that they can't in a so-called realistic novel.”

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Author:Malinda Lo
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“I find it interesting that people often seem to believe that authors of realistic fiction are directly translating their personal experiences into their work. The fact is that telling a story is a transformative experience. There is rarely a one-to-one translation onto the page unless you're writing memoir, and even then, memory is unreliable. I think that the best books feel emotionally true, and that truth has to be rooted in real-world experience.”

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Author:Malinda Lo
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