“Years ago I read an interview with Paula Fox in which she said that in writing, truth is just as important as story. Reading that interview was the first time I really understood that there's no point in trying to impress people with my cleverness when I can just try to write honestly about what matters most to me.” PeopleWritingTryingYearsFirstsSaidI CanImportantMatterStoriesReadingTruth IsUnderstoodFirst TimeYears AgoHonestlyInterviewsWhat MattersImpressFoxesNo PointClevernessNo Point In Trying Author:Molly Antopol
“Stuart Rojstaczer writes with enormous wit, style and empathy, and The Mathematician's Shiva is a big-hearted, rollickingly funny novel that's impossible to put down. A tremendous debut.” WritingBigsNovelImpossibleStyleEmpathyWitEnormousMathematicianHeartedDebutShiva Author:Molly Antopol
“I knew that I was writing for an American audience and that if I sold foreign rights, they would retranslate the book to make it make sense to that language. But one thing that was really important to me was not to italicize any of the words in the languages that were in the stories, because I feel like those foreign words felt just as important and integral to the story as everything else, so I wanted it all to just exist as its own thing.” IfsFeelsWritingImportantBookStoriesWantedLanguageFeltAudienceRightsOne ThingMake Sense Author:Molly Antopol
“It's funny - for a long time, I didn't know I was writing a book. I was writing stories. For me, each story took so long and took so much out of me, that when I finished it, I was like, Oh my gosh, I feel like I've poured everything from myself into this, and then I'd get depressed for a week. And then once I was ready to write a new story, I would want to write about something that was completely different, so I would search for a totally different character with a different set of circumstances.” KnowsWantFeelsWritingLongBookDifferentCharacterStoriesWeekReadyCircumstancesLong TimeFinishedWriting A BookDifferent CharactersWriting StoriesOh My Gosh Author:Molly Antopol
“But what I realized when I was looking back at them was that no matter how different they are, they're still coming from me, and they're still coming from my brain and my set of obsessions. I think that no matter how different I tried to make them, there were just these certain questions that I just kept circling back to as I was writing. I think they were the ones I was really swept up in in that decade.” ThinkingWritingStillsDifferentMatterCertainBrainDecadesI RealizedObsessionLooking Back Author:Molly Antopol
“It really made me nervous to write about it [Holocaust] and to approach it, because I was nervous about how to do it respectfully, and I was also thinking about how I could add something new to something that had already been so explored.” ThinkingWritingMadeApproachAddNervousSomething NewHolocaust Author:Molly Antopol
“The Israel stories were really hard for me to write, because I think that my book is very much about politics, but it isn't political. It really was important for me to not have a political agenda at all, because I have a hard time stomaching any political fiction that feels message-y.” ThinkingFeelsWritingImportantBookHardStoriesPoliticalFictionMessagesIsraelHard TimesAgendasPolitical Agendas Author:Molly Antopol
“It was tricky [to write about Israelis], because everyone has an opinion about the Arab - Israeli conflict, and when I first started writing these stories, I was working for an Arab - Israeli human rights group. It was during the Second Intifada. It was this totally violent and intense time, and I think there's a part of me where I don't know how to write about that situation without getting my politics out of my messages, and that's something that was important for me not to do in this book.” ThinkingKnowsWritingFirstsHumansImportantBookStoriesSituationOpinionKnow HowRightsGroupsConflictMessagesHuman RightsViolentIntenseIsraeliTrickyArab Israeli Conflict Author:Molly Antopol
“I felt like if I could get the epiphany out of the way in my drafting process, through my eighth or tenth draft, then that can just be part of how I've assembled the character, and then we can move on and move forward with it. In general, I don't ever want to feel smarter than my characters, because I just feel like that's not a great way to write a story.” IfsWayWantFeelsWritingCharacterStoriesMovingFeltProcessMoving ForwardIf I CouldSmarterEpiphanyDrafting Author:Molly Antopol
“There are certain writers I can't read when I'm trying to write because their voices are so distinct. Cormac McCarthy, he's the most different writer from anything I've ever written, but there's something about those really spare sentences that is just tough - it would be too much of an influence. Grace Paley is my favorite writer. Her stuff is so voice-driven, when I read her a lot I want to make my writing more voice-y and dialogue-heavy. I love a lot of stuff in translation.” WritingTryingDifferentGraceInfluenceToughMy FavoriteTranslations Author:Molly Antopol
“I always tell my students to write the story all the way through, not to play with the language and fall in love with sentences that you then have to cut. I actually find that really difficult to do; there's something so demoralizing about looking at a pile of not very great sentences. As I ease into writing every morning, I tweak a sentence and then tweak a paragraph.” WritingFallLanguageDifficultMorningCuttingStudentsFalling In LoveEvery MorningParagraphTweakDemoralizing Author:Molly Antopol
“It is more important to just be as honest as I can about my characters than to write some really great sentence.” WritingImportantCharacterHonestReally Great Author:Molly Antopol
