Ten Questions for Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
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“In the mornings—or when I roll over from a dream—there’s only God and me talking to each other.” —Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, author of The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois
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Read weekly interviews with authors to learn the inside stories of how their books were written, edited, and published; insights into the creative process; the best writing advice they’ve ever heard; and more.
“In the mornings—or when I roll over from a dream—there’s only God and me talking to each other.” —Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, author of The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois
“I find it really hard to follow a routine in almost every part of my life.” —Kat Chow, author of Seeing Ghosts
“Combining unsparing humor with heart is a superpower.” —Jaime Cortez, author of Gordo
“I write when an idea, story, or book commands me to.” —Louis Edwards, author of Ramadan Ramsey
“Show up no matter what so your writing knows you are there.” —Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, author of Savage Tongues
“The hardest part of writing Virga was finding the courage to be vulnerable on the page.” —Shin Yu Pai, author of Virga
“I only write about the things that haunt me in some way.” —Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies
“Engaging with art doesn’t have to be about understanding something or getting the right answer.” —Beth Morgan, author of A Touch of Jen
This week’s installment of Ten Questions features Pajtim Statovci and David Hackston, the author and the translator of Bolla.
“The book often knows more, and knows better, than you do.” —Clare Sestanovich, author of Objects of Desire
This week’s installment of Ten Questions features Mariana Oliver and Julia Sanches, the author and the translator of Migratory Birds.
“All memoirists are making art out of time, and there isn’t one way.” —Krys Malcolm Belc, the author of The Natural Mother of the Child
“Having to insist on that center and refuse, over and over again, to compromise the work in service of a white gaze was one of the most brutal experiences of my career.” —Akwaeke Emezi, author of Dear Senthuran
“You’re neither the genius nor the failure you think you are.” —Jack Wang, author of We Two Alone
“I will miss these characters living in my head.” —Monica West, author of Revival Season
“The words start to feel like they’re punching my skull from the inside.” —Brian Broome, author of Punch Me Up to the Gods
“It was all fun and games until I realized that I was actually writing a book.” —E. C. Osondu, author of Alien Stories
“I need the volume of more than one trusted reader to hear suggestions over my own investment in being right.” —Donika Kelly, author of The Renunciations
“There are so many journeys I’d like to take” —Kelli Russell Agodon, author of Dialogues with Rising Tides
“I often worried what would come out would be scary, accusing, not close enough to the truth or too close.” —Carey Salerno, author of Tributary
“There’s something sort of final and fulfilling about discovering, say, that a poem’s floor is also its ceiling.” —Justin Jannise, author of How to be Better by Being Worse
“Writers cannot afford the luxury of emotional numbness nor protective armor.” —Quiara Alegría Hudes, author of My Broken Language
“Do the hard stuff first.” —Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of Libertie
“Working in a tactile creative form refreshed my approach to making changes in my writing.” —Gina Nutt, author of Night Rooms
“Eventually, like a banner, the imagination unfurls itself.” —Jo Ann Beard, author of Festival Days