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
time
Dostoevsky was my literary idol for a long time.
hard time
I have a hard time with abstractions. I always go to the personal.
anger experience happy human people richness suffering time writer
A lot of people think they should be happy all the time. But the writer understands you need both. You need the whole piano: the richness of the whole human experience. Depression, suffering and anger are all part of being human.
angeles came figure fill five home los mother people politics talking time
A figure in Los Angeles politics for five decades, my mother nevertheless had had her fill of talking to people by the time she came home at night.
time whether
I write all the time, whether I feel like it or not. I never get inspired unless I'm already writing.
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.
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.