We salvage the bones of our lives every day, through small tragedies and big tragedies. Jesmyn Ward Read Quote
We’re all about pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, et cetera – I think that’s a harmful mythology, that the choices that we make and the things that we do in our lives are not connected to anything else. So I’d like to help to debunk that. Jesmyn Ward Read Quote
I’ve found that in fiction – and this is just the kind of writer I am – I can’t really work from an outline. I have a vague idea of the characters at the beginning of the book, and then I have a vague idea of whatever the end of the book will be, but I can’t approach creative nonfiction like that. Jesmyn Ward Read Quote
It’s always hard for a writer to make herself into a character; I had to figure out what my defining characteristics were, and that’s something I had to work through multiple drafts to figure out. Jesmyn Ward Read Quote
It’s very hard to deal with true subject matter, especially when you’re writing about such weighty issues. Jesmyn Ward Read Quote
I was pleasantly surprised with ‘Salvage.’ I went to Australia and New Zealand for the novel and met a lot of people who had experienced the earthquakes in Christchurch. They responded very strongly to the book because they had been through these natural disasters and were trying to figure out how to rebuild. Jesmyn Ward Read Quote
People give the South a bad rap. It’s often stereotyped as backwards and close-minded and dogmatic, and all of those things have been true. But I think that the South is changing, slowly but surely. Jesmyn Ward Read Quote
On one hand, I am very pessimistic, but on the other hand, if I didn’t believe that speaking up would do something, I wouldn’t have spoken. Jesmyn Ward Read Quote
In American culture at large, but especially in African American culture, it’s a sign of weakness to ask for help. Jesmyn Ward Read Quote
At every turn, Molly Antopol’s gorgeous debut story collection, ‘The UnAmericans,’ is firing on multiple cylinders. Jesmyn Ward Read Quote
