Amy Bloom
Amy Bloom
Amy Bloomis an American writer and psychotherapist. She has been nominated for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
appears characters plays sort
Plays are wonderfully different than short stories, first because it's a story that's on a stage, but there's a different sort of tension that appears on stage - you get to see your characters in a different way - like with lights.
everybody period whether
I find the 1940s very compelling. It is a very excitable period in the U.S. when, whether out of necessity or not, everybody was reinventing themselves.
almost entire learned life scripts
I learned how to write television scripts the same way I have learned to do almost everything else in my entire life, which is by reading.
readers
I find my readers to be very smart, and there is no reason to write dumb.
apparently except home job
I didn't think being a writer was a fancy thing. It was a job like any other job, except apparently you could do it at home.
assume time writer
I assume as a writer that most of the time I'm going to fall down and fail.
philip
There are two trilogies I admire: Robertson Davies's 'The Deptford Trilogy' and Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials.'
books centuries happiness people pursuing trash worse
Smart people often talk trash about happiness and worse than trash about books on happiness, and they have been doing so for centuries - just as long as other people have been pursuing happiness and writing books about it.
anyone audience behavior finds funny human target
My target audience is anyone who finds the world interesting and human behavior fascinating, terrible, inspiring, funny, and occasionally, mysterious.
behave great happening hear mouth saying sentences shut
Keep your mouth shut and see what's happening around you. Don't finish people's sentences for them. Don't just hear what they say, but also how they behave while they're saying it. That was great training for writing.
alice austen dickens fine influenced jane paintings plays stories sure
I'm sure I've been influenced by every fine writer I've ever read, from Dickens and Austen to Auden and Jane Hirshfield. And also, the short stories of Updike, Cheever, Munro, Alice Adams, and Doris Lessing. And the plays of Oscar Wilde. And paintings by Alice Neel and Matisse.
cool covers dodge dusty edge floor glasses lying pink public reader sitting standing tooth
I was the kind of reader in smudged pink harlequin glasses sitting on the cool, dusty floor of the Arrandale public library, standing at the edge of the playground, having broken a tooth in dodge ball, and lying under my covers with a flashlight.
occurred written
I do have a sister. I have never written much about sisters before. I am very close to my sister, but, maybe, because we are very close, it never occurred to me to write about her.
both easier facts fill gaps harder imagination laid narrative nonfiction within
Nonfiction is both easier and harder to write than fiction. It's easier because the facts are already laid out before you, and there is already a narrative arc. What makes it harder is that you are not free to use your imagination and creativity to fill in any missing gaps within the story.