Janet Fitch
Janet Fitch
Janet Fitch is most famously known as the author of the Oprah's Book Club novel White Oleander, which became a film in 2002. She is a graduate of Reed College, located in Portland, Oregon...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth9 November 1955
CountryUnited States of America
music poetry rhythms
I always read poetry before I write, to sensitize me to the rhythms and music of language.
writing poetry trying
The poets are the standard bearers of language. Their work lives or dies word by word. When I write and can hear a clunky sentence, I try to write up to the poetry that I have recited beforehand.
mean poet said
Just because a poet said something didn’t mean it was true, only that it sounded good.
heart water poetry
Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.
life realized spend
I started writing when I was 21. I was going to become an historian. And then I realized there was more to the world than just the past. I didn't want to spend my life in the library.
associate carol editor joyce send
I send all my short fiction to 'Ontario Review' because Joyce Carol Oates is associate editor there, and I think she's fantastic.
los
Crime novelists do really well with Los Angeles.
body reader smell vivid
The thing that makes vivid writing is when the reader is in the body of the story, the body of the character. Things smell like something; there's weather, there's texture, there's light.
children concerned left nobody society
I've always been concerned with what happens to children in our society when there's nobody left to take care of them.
time
Dostoevsky was my literary idol for a long time.
authors describing emotional establish events mood notes tone
Use description of landscape to help you establish the emotional tone of the scene. Keep notes of how other authors establish mood and foreshadow events by describing the world around the character.
recreation solitary
My mother had been a solitary chef. It was her recreation and her escape.
good unless
I write every day... I never get ideas unless I'm actually writing. Ideas I get in the shower don't do me any good.
family including pay wondering
I write every day, including weekends. For writers, there are no weekends. It's just that your family is around, looking mournful, wondering when you're going to pay attention to them.