“I adore the work of Stephen Sondheim. I like musicales in general. They make surprisingly great running tapes.” Quote by Laura Lippman
“My family is really, really Southern - I had two uncle Bubbas, and grandparents that we called Big Mama and Big Daddy.” TwoBigsMy FamilySouthernUnclesGrandparentDaddyMamaBubbaBig DaddyBig Mama Author:Laura Lippman
“I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints - the sinners are much more fun.” SongFunLaughingCrySaintSinnerSaints And Sinners Author:Billy Joel
“I had ancestors who were slave-holders, which is a difficult piece of family history to say the least. In a recent New York Times article on the subject of modern attitudes toward our slave-holding past, the writer noted that we all want to be from "innocent origins." I _know_ I'm not. Then again, I suspect most of us are not.” WantPastDifficultAttitudePiecesModernSubjectsNew YorkSlaveInnocentSuspectsArticlesAncestorNew York TimesFamily History Author:Laura Lippman
“I carry in my datebook a piece of paper that my mother copied out for me, from the 1840 Census. Hardy Callaway Culver of Hancock County, Georgia, had 42 slaves, 31 "employed in agriculture." Culver was my great-great-great grandfather. I carry this piece of paper with me every day because I don't want to forget. I don't know what to do with the information, but I don't want to forget it.” KnowsWantMotherForgetPiecesInformationPaperSlaveGrandfatherAgricultureEmployedForget ItCountyGeorgiaHardyCensusGreat Grandfather Author:Laura Lippman
“Reporting is pretty vital to me. It keeps me connected to the world. A 40-hour-per-week day job may be less feasible as time goes on.” WorldMayJobsHoursWeekGoes OnConnectedDay JobsTime Goes On Author:Laura Lippman
“On top of whatever else I'm doing, I'm usually teaching some form of composition. The benefit of this is I get to read across disciplines. Often enough that work spills over to my creative reading/thinking, and I reach a point of saturation where I can't distinguish between texts and writers and everything starts to blur and smudge together.” ThinkingI CanEnoughTogetherFormReadingCreativeTeachingDisciplineBenefitsCompositionSpillsBlurSaturation Author:Gregory Pardlo
“My own emotional health issues were bullying me during the time I was drafting that poem. It was a pressure I couldn't pin down or diagnose. And like many, if not most, writers I had the self-consciousness to recognize it made great conditions for writing.” IfsWritingMadeSelfMy OwnConsciousnessIssuesConditionsEmotionalPressureBullyingPinsSelf ConsciousnessEmotional HealthHealth IssuesDrafting Author:Gregory Pardlo
“Some of the stories in Dogwalker were written as long as four years ago, but I wouldn't say I've been working on this collection for four years. I have always been a little unsure of whether I could make it as a writer so I've held other jobs and worked on other projects this whole time.” YearsLittlesLongWholeStoriesJobsFourWrittenProjectsYears AgoCollectionsFour YearsUnsure Author:Arthur Bradford
“I admit I keep a clichéd ironic distance with many things in the world, but Brooklyn is not one of them.” WorldDistanceIronicBrooklyn Author:Gregory Pardlo
“I tend to integrate poet and scholar is by ironizing the scholarship. My hope is to disturb that space between the two so they can coexist in a kind of mutual uncertainty.” KindTwoSpacePoetUncertaintyMutualScholarScholarshipIntegratingSpace BetweenCoexist Author:Gregory Pardlo