Dani Shapiro
Dani Shapiro
Daneile Joyce "Dani" Shapiro is the author of five novels and the best-selling memoirs Slow Motion and Devotion. She has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and ELLE...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 April 1962
CountryUnited States of America
writing opposites practice
I do keep a tiny little journal in which I write passages that I read and want to hold on to. This practice is sort of the opposite of Twitter.
writing garbage-cans house
My journals were a clearing house - a garbage can. Once I was writing seriously, I understood that this was the stuff that didn't belong in my work.
growing-up writing practice
When I was growing up, I had no idea that I could possibly become a writer. I wrote endlessly in journals - a practice I maintained for a long time, well into the writing life I had no idea I could ever have.
dream distance writing
I was in my early thirties writing about my early twenties, so there was this way of seeing my younger self from enough of a distance to have perspective but also not to feel that I had to protect myself. My dreams for myself then would have undersold myself in a way.
writing world computer
The Internet and all its lures are much, much harder than anything I've ever encountered. If you're writing on a computer, the very instrument you're writing on is already tainted by the world out there in all its permutations.
writing thinking feelings
When I was writing my first novel, I smoked cigarettes. And when I think about what it was like to smoke, I remember exactly the feeling of sitting in front of my big old computer in that little room where I wrote my first novel.
writing thinking mind
Our minds simply don't function in some sort of narrative chronology. I think that one of the great gifts of writing fiction is being able to think about that.
book writing journey
There are books that a writer undertakes because she wants to go on a journey, and there are journeys a writer undertakes because she wants to write a book.
hurt writing creative
If you write memoir, it can't be about blame or hurt; it has to be creative.
dream writing breathing
Writing well involves walking the path of most resistance. Sitting still, being patient, allowing the lunatic dream to take shape on the page, then the shaping, the pencil on the page, breathing, slowing down, being willing–no, more than willing, being wide open–to press the bruise until it blossoms.
writing alive wells
I never feel so alive as when I'm writing and the work is going well.
running teacher writing
If I waited to be in the mood to write, I'd barely have a chapbook of material to my name. Who would ever be in the mood to write? Do marathon runners get in the mood to run? Do teachers wake up with the urge to lecture? I don't know, but I doubt it. My guess is that it's the very act that is generative. The doing of the thing that makes possible the desire for it.
eye writing people
I never troll for material. It simply presents itself, and is always unmistakable. This is why I want to roll my eyes when people interrupt themselves in the middle of some story they're telling me to say, "You know you can't write about this."
moving commitment writing
It's essential to have sacred time for writing. All successful authors have some daily commitment to keep on-track and moving forward.