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Quote by Jill Talbot

“I like to think about the genre, the essay or the memoir, as much as I enjoy writing within its fluid parameters. And teaching allows me to think about it, to articulate it, and to explore it.”

Author

Jill Talbot

Limited information is available about Jill Talbot, born in 1970, who is a mysterious figure with an unknown profession. more

“Simply put, meta-writing is writing that is self-conscious, self-reflective, and aware of itself as an artifice. The writer is aware she's writing, and she's aware there's a reader, which goes all the way back to Montaigne's often-used address "dear reader," or his brief introduction to Essais: "To the Reader." It can be done in a myriad of ways.”

Writing Done Dear Introduction

Author:Jill Talbot

“There's a moment in Sarah Manguso's The Guardians when she writes, "I try not to make anything up, and I fail every time." I get giddy when I come across lines like that - when the writer is not only making a meta-move, but one that troubles truth and fiction, the nature of genre itself.”

Writing Trying Moments Failing Trouble Guardian Giddy

Author:Jill Talbot

“How long do we live in the fictions of our past? And how do we convince anyone that who we write is not necessarily who we are?”

Writing Long Past Convince Our Past

Author:Jill Talbot

“That idea of not being exactly who you write as is so crucial. Even looking at those words as I type them, it feels dirty, it feels like I'm admitting something. Unfortunately, I think that's how the conversation around nonfiction is so much of the time - either defensive or accusatory. Aha! You've been caught! But the original essence of something is always lost when it's reproduced.”

Thinking Writing Dirty

Author:Lucas Mann

“A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller.”

Inspirational Littles Enough Growth Change Recovery Another Time

Book:The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918

Source: The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918

“Walter Benjamin talks about art losing its original "aura" in an age of mechanical reproduction. In writing memoir, we're taking something that happened in a particular moment and meant something at that time, and we're trying to capture it to mass reproduce it for readers. So of course something is lost. And when we edit that material, we're getting even further from that aura, but toward something else that is potentially vital.”

Writing Trying Art Moments Age Losing Memoir

Author:Lucas Mann

“I came to nonfiction through journalism. My first book was journalism, and it was so frustrating to me, while I was writing it, that I wasn't capturing the moments the way they were when I lived them; I was filtering and re-filtering. I had to come to terms with the fact that I couldn't and shouldn't claim authenticity. Then, when the book was published and I gave readings, I'd hear myself read and it was like I was eavesdropping on a dream - even with myself as the narrator. I knew that guy but couldn't exactly recognize him.”

Writing Book Moments Dream Guy Reading Term Authenticity Journalism Frustrating Eavesdropping

Author:Lucas Mann

“It's been very jarring for me to stand in public and read about myself and my daughter and her father. I feel like I'm reading someone else's story, and I feel like I've lost something, too, in the writing of self, as if I'm standing and reading myself, as a stranger, to other strangers.”

Writing Reading Father Daughter Stranger My Daughter

Author:Jill Talbot

“Lately I've been thinking about the idea that all novels are, at least in some way, about the process of writing a novel - that the construction of the book and the lineage of people constructing novels are always part of the story the author is telling. I think the equivalent for memoir should be that all memoirs are, in some way, about the process of memory. Memoirs are made out of a confusing, flawed act of creation.”

People Thinking Writing Book Memories Novel Creation Memoir Construction Confusing Flawed

Author:Lucas Mann

“One of my friends who writes novels says that once the book is published, it's a separate thing from you; it becomes its own. I feel that way when I read - and that applies to the experience of reading my work in public, too. The essays are a barrier between me and the audience, and it feels like a disappearing act. Poof! I'm gone, and the woman I've created on the page emerges.”

Writing Book Reading Novel Audience Disappear Barriers Essays

Author:Jill Talbot

Quote by Jill Talbot

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