Carolina De Robertis Recommends...

“When I’m in the thick of a project, the most important sources of inspiration are those that help me open the gates of reverie, that make me descend into that nonverbal realm from which potent fiction paradoxically springs. These forms of inspiration are everywhere. I listen to music. I read. I re-read, especially Faulkner, Woolf, Morrison, Lispector, Saramago, Borges, Melville, Rilke, Whitman, and many others, roving the pages with more than my conscious mind, trusting the masterful prose to push my own work open. I also take walks, and tune in to the light as it spills into trees and sparks in the gutters. The infinite complexity of light on the varied surfaces of the world is a remarkable thing. It is constantly taking place all around us, and a lifetime of writing would not exhaust it. I don’t know why this works, why listening to the interplay of light and things while walking on a street or trail is so damn good for the writing, but I always come back to my writing desk with more to give the page than I had before.”
Carolina De Robertis, author of Perla (Knopf, 2012)