Alice McDermott
Alice McDermott
Alice McDermottis an American writer and university professor. For her 1998 novel Charming Billy she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth27 June 1953
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
tools world language
Language is the writer's only tool - we really don't have anything else - but our language contains within it our entire experience of the world.
ask graduate students understand whether work
At the beginning of every semester, I ask my graduate students whether there is something I should read that will help me understand their work.
across dynamics family time
Family dynamics are true over time, across generations and different cultures.
call experience formed language lots oral prayers song spirit third time twice
Much of my experience with language was formed in the church, which has an oral tradition. There are lots of repetitions in prayers and song refrains. There's a sense of incantation, that if you call not once and not twice but for a third time, the spirit appears.
great looks
No one looks at a baby and says, 'You are going to be a great novelist, and you really need to start writing now.' Something in us says: 'This is what I must do.'
I wouldn't want to tweet to anyone who would be interested in my tweets.
characters concerned cringe followers guess leads online rather sentences stuff supposed writers
I guess I cringe when the discussion leads to, rather than books and sentences and characters and the stuff that writers are supposed to be concerned with, how to have an online presence and how many followers you have on Twitter. That stuff always makes me uncomfortable.
cell children constantly cultivate notion trying
I am trying to cultivate the notion that constantly misplacing one's cell phone is a charming eccentricity... my children aren't buying it.
lose love manipulate
I love a well-plotted story. But I'm just not that kind of writer, and it's not necessarily by choice. When I manipulate plot, I feel I lose authenticity.
fondness great
I have a great fondness for the liars in my stories.
change interested pure
Memory is not pure. Memories told are not pure memories; memories told are stories. The storyteller will change them. I've always been interested in that.
adolescent appealed appealing books both romantic sinking suppose
Right away I think of two books - 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Rebecca' - and of just sinking into them as a young reader. I think they must have appealed not just to my romantic adolescent soul, but I suppose there's also an appealing darkness in both of them.
inevitable
Loss is inevitable - you have to be blind or naive to think otherwise.
define larger matter rather somehow time trying work
I think place and time for me is often a matter of convenience, something I can use to another end rather than something I'm trying to define because it's somehow fascinating to me in itself. It's more what the place can do for the larger goals I have for the work.