Jami Attenberg
Jami Attenberg
reading mean writing
Studying writing to me means reading and also rewriting obsessively. That's the best way to learn.
reading giving kind
I love doing readings. I could really give a crap about reviews. It's kind of about the readers.
book reading night
I love reading books that you can't put down, and they just take you over for a night or a weekend.
respects
There's something to be said for an author who clearly respects a reader.
decline
Sadly, e-mail has triggered the decline of the handwritten note; I have seen its near-disappearance in my lifetime.
Cooking skills aside, my mother is an exceptional nurturer.
anywhere near
I won't go anywhere near the new Times Square. It's seizure-inducing.
ate fat parents point themselves
I was fat because my parents were a little fat themselves at that point in their lives, and I ate what they ate.
I was fat because I lived in the Midwest in the 1970s, and everyone was a little fat then and only getting fatter.
color hide
For years I'd thought my color was black: deep, dark, thoughtful, mysterious. Black, you can hide behind. But now I know it is red.
dozen drove forth
For years I drove cross-country, back and forth a dozen times, sometimes on book tour, sometimes just to get lost and found.
men talk women
I don't know much about any of the Hasidim because the men won't talk to me because I'm a woman, and the women won't talk to me because, while I am Jewish, I'm not Hasidic.
act morning wake
I can act like a boy as much as I want, but when I wake up in the morning, I'm still a woman.
countless graduate literary pitch published pursue seemed send writers
I didn't go to graduate school, where all the important writers seemed to be getting their start. I didn't pursue getting published in literary magazines. I didn't even send out countless pitch letters and manuscripts to agents.