writing
don’t worry about imagination. You have all the imagination you need, and all the reading, journal writing, and learning you will be doing will stimulate it. Play with your ideas. Have fun with them. Don’t worry about being silly or outrageous or wrong. So much of writing is fun. It’s first letting your interests and your imagination take you anywh
... See moreOctavia E. Butler • Bloodchild
Writers of color had to behave better in their poetry and in person; they had to always act gracious and grateful so that white people would be comfortable enough to sympathize with their racialized experiences. I never forgot hearing one award-winning poet of color say during a Q&A, “If you want to write about race, you have to do it politely,
... See moreCathy Park Hong • Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
When I have to deal with something that disturbs me as much as the botfly did, I write about it.
Octavia E. Butler • Bloodchild
When I could not think, I could not write nor could I socialize and carry on a conversation. I was the child again. The child who could not speak English.
Cathy Park Hong • Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
From a young age, I learned to speak for my mother as authoritatively as I could. Not only did I want to dispel the derision I saw behind that woman’s eyes, I wanted to shame her with my sobering fluency for thinking what she was thinking. I have been partly drawn to writing, I realize, to judge those who have unfairly judged my family; to prove th
... See moreCathy Park Hong • Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
The words fell out of him like the exhalation of some hot, dense space inside him, and when he was done talking, he looked up, thinking that no one had really been paying attention. That’s how it was. He talked and people drifted in and out of concentration. But when he looked up, Wallace saw that each of them was looking at him with what seemed to
... See moreBrandon Taylor • Real Life: A Novel
Ray Bradbury talks about the importance of not thinking when he is writing. He says that when he arrives at the typewriter, his task is to be living. To let his soul pour out onto the page. To quiet the mind and let his body do the talking. Then, he checks his work afterwards using the mind as a ‘corrective force’ to refine. But he uses the body to... See more
That’s why I’ve called this mild little essay “Furor Scribendi”—“A Rage for Writing.” “Rage,” “Positive Obsession,” “burning need to write ” … Call it anything you like; it’s a useful emotion.
Octavia E. Butler • Bloodchild
I am essentially a novelist. The ideas that most interest me tend to be big. Exploring them takes more time and space than a short story can contain.