Because I think of novels as collaborative enterprises between the writer and the reader, all of my novels … - Emily Barton

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

I long for the simplicity of theatre. I want lessons learned, comeuppances delivered, people sorted out, all before your bladder gets distractingly full. That's what I want. What I know is what we all know, whether we'll admit it or not: every attempt to impose the roundness of a well-made play on reality produces a disaster. Life just isn't so, nor will it be made so.

Emily Barton

Because I think of novels as collaborative enterprises between the writer and the reader, all of my novels so far have ending with endings that maybe point in more than one direction, and that seems important to me because it seems important to me that after you've invested twenty or thirty hours of your imaginative life into this narrative that you have some stake in how it ends.

Ending, Important, One Direction, Reader, Thinking, Thirty

Same Author Quotes

A novel is a way to rethink and rewrite and re-envision the past, and also a way to speak to people who haven't been born yet about what we think about right now.

Novel, Past, People, Think, Thinking

Historical fiction is a collaboration between the time in which it's written and the time that it's writing about and the far future, when we don't know what people are going to think about yet.

Collaboration, Historical, People, Thinking, Writing

Teaching and writing, really, they support and nourish each other, and they foster good thinking. Because when you show up in the classroom, you may have on the mantle of authority, but in fact, you're just a writer helping other writers think through their problems. Your experience with the problems you've tried to solve comes into play in how you try to teach them to solve their problems.

Support, Teaching, Thinking, Writers, Writing

The problems that other writers encounter are so fascinating to me as a writer and as a thinker about writing. I have found that many times, my students are experiencing problems that I myself have experienced in my work, but the solution is different because they're different people.

Encounters, Experienced, Experiencing, People, Students, Writing

Trying to talk through and figure out new answers really helps me figure out more about what I'm doing - and what we're all doing.

Answers, Figure, Helping, Talk, Trying