“To what or whom does Lizzie Harris direct the imperative title of her startling first book, Stop Wanting? To the reader, the narrator, to desire itself, or to lack? This is a work of complexly, ambiguously layered narratives and identities. The opening poem asserts I want to say what happened / but am suspicious of stories. These lines become an ars poetica for the whole of this painful and exceptional collection in which the unspeakable is stubbornly confronted by a searing eloquence. This is a commanding debut.” WantFirstsDoeBookWholeStoriesDesireLinesHappenedIdentityReaderDirectPainfulOpeningNarrativeTitlesCollectionsExceptionalImperativesSuspiciousEloquenceUnspeakableDebutNarrators Author:Lynn Emanuel
“Sometimes you read something and it's just -- it doesn't invite a reader....Sometimes you read something and it's not saying, 'oh come in, come in have a seat. I'm going to tell you what happened.' Perhaps my writing comes off as conversational...and that takes effort.” WritingSometimesCommunityEffortHappenedHuman NatureReaderIndividualitySeatsInvites Author:David Sedaris
“In a sense I am able to interrogate myself, address myself from that slight distance and enter a kind of dialogical relationship with myself. Because I'm saying, "Look, these are things that have happened to me, but how odd they are or how ordinary they are [is up to the reader to decide]."” LooksKindAbleHappenedReaderOrdinaryDistanceOddAddresses Author:Paul Auster
“When you're writing a book that is going to be a narrative with characters and events, you're walking very close to fiction, since you're using some of the methods of fiction writing. You're lying, but some of the details may well come from your general recollection rather than from the particular scene. In the end it comes down to the readers. If they believe you, you're OK. A memoirist is really like any other con man; if he's convincing, he's home. If he isn't, it doesn't really matter whether it happened, he hasn't succeeded in making it feel convincing.” IfsMenFeelsWritingBelieveWellsMayBookEndsMatterCharacterHomeLyingFictionHappenedEventsParticularReaderWalkingSceneMethodDetailsNarrativeConvincingWriting A BookRecollectionFiction Writing Author:Samuel Hynes
“I'm a great reader of history. I love - I have been reading history since I was a kid, and learning the lessons globally of what happened with people.” PeopleHas BeensKidsReadingHappenedReaderLessonsReading History Author:Warren Mundine
“I had to do things to myself on the page that had been done to me in real life. I had to try and drown myself in the bath. You have to do that. And the impulse is to rescue yourself and to spare the reader, but I can't rescue myself. And why should I spare the reader when nobody spared me? It's telling people what happened.” PeopleShouldTryingI CanRealDoneHappenedReaderPagesReal LifeImpulseRescueShould ISparesBaths Author:Damian Barr
“I don't know that I had a sense that there was such a thing as "the poetry world" in the 1960s and early 70s. Maybe poets did, but for me as an onlooker and reader of poetry, poetry felt like it was part of a larger literary world. I mean, even the phrase "the poetry world" reflects a sort of balkanization of American literary and artistic life that has to some extent happened since then.” KnowsWorldMeanFeltHappenedPoetReaderArtisticPhrases1960sArtistic Life Author:Robert Hass
“I like nudging readers into a slightly different perspective, but in a sly way - I want to be the writer who slips a stiletto in and out, to make so swift and clean a cut, it's not until a chapter ends that the reader looks down and sees she's bleeding and asks what happened.” WayWantLooksDifferentEndsAsksCuttingHappenedPerspectiveReaderDown AndCleanSlipsChaptersBleedingDifferent PerspectiveSlyStilettos Author:Kathryn Harrison
“It's an important moment as a reader, I think, when you can forget the question of whether you need to know what happened. Some people really want hard explanations. I'm the other way. I like mysteries. I don't want to frustrate people. I don't want people to feel like they got no answers, but I want to approach the mystery and sit with it.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWayWantNeedsFeelsImportantHardMomentsAnswersForgetHappenedMysteryReaderApproachExplanationImportant Moments Author:John Darnielle
“So people that read the New York Times are not gonna have the slightest idea what really happened here. So not only are the Drive-Bys themselves a little dense and not curious and uninformed, so are all of their viewers and readers.” PeopleLittlesIdeasHappenedNew YorkReaderCuriousViewersNew York TimesDenseUninformed Author:Rush Limbaugh