Catherynne M. Valente

Catherynne M. Valente
...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth5 May 1979
CountryUnited States of America
eye dark long
Who are you?" "I am Death," said the creature. "I thought that was obvious." "But you're so small!" "Only because you are small. You are young and far from your Death, September, so I seem as anything would seem if you saw it from a long way off-very small, very harmless. But I am always closer than I appear. As you grow, I shall grow with you, until at the end, I shall loom huge and dark over your bed, and you will shut your eyes so as not to see me.
writing fire long
I have tried to write stories that go into the underworld of myth and bring out life and fire — where the old world looked at a woman alone and immortal and said: she must long to die, I have tried to say: look at her live!
girl reading long
I am a practical girl, and a life is only so long. It should be spent in as much peace and good eating and good reading as possible and no undue excitement. That is all I am after.
strong heart long-ago
Hearts set about finding other hearts the moment they are born, and between them, they weave nets so frightfully strong and tight that you end up bound forever in hopeless knots, even to the shadow of a beast you knew and loved long ago.
fantasy garden life love rest
Fantasy is my heart and love. And I just want to play in that garden for the rest of my life.
amazing mean time vampires
Vampires should be pretty much like mean girls, all the time, only amazing at it. Flawless. They've had time.
apart kids science tales took tv
Just about every science whiz can tell you how he or she took apart the TV or the radio when they were kids just to see how it worked. To see what the world was made of. Well, when I was a kid, I took apart fairy tales to see how they worked. To see what the world was made of.
almost fears incredibly inherently thus
Monsters almost always are culture's way of working out their fears and are thus inherently incredibly interesting and powerful.
delighted floating free inspired legal loved mine piece spend thrilled time
I have always been delighted when told there was a piece of fanfic inspired by a book of mine floating about. I don't read it for legal reasons, but I'm thrilled to know it's there. Someone cared. Someone loved it enough to spend their free time writing about it for free.
awful except stop teacher took
Every writing teacher I ever had except for one told me I was an awful writer, had no idea what I was doing, and should stop immediately. It only took the one to tell me something different to light a fire under me.
along fairy tale
No matter what you write, you actually can't help retelling a fairy tale somewhere along the way.
cry gear genre pair uncle vampire
Everyone has a right to cry uncle on a genre every once in awhile. I've done it myself. Sometimes you just can't bear another gear or pair of wings or vampire teeth. You go on a fast, and sometimes you come back, and sometimes you don't.
author fan few fiction gets morally name people seems shocked upset writers
It seems like every few years a big name author will holler something about how evil, heinous, and morally wrong fan fiction and fan fiction writers are, and then the Internet gets all upset and shocked, and then the author is shocked that people could get so upset.
stretching
I try to hurt myself, to sprain something, writing every novel and story, because I'm stretching for something new and difficult that I haven't done before.