Julia Glass
Julia Glass
Julia Glassis an American novelist. Her debut novel, Three Junes, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2002...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth23 March 1956
CountryUnited States of America
experience good ground learn life lifts lived neither nor novel people quite sensation
A good novel is an out-of-self experience. It lifts you off the ground so that you have the sensation of flying. It says, 'Look at the world around you; learn from the people in these pages, neither quite me nor quite you, how life is lived in so many different ways.'
begin family filled focusing male novels point readers realize truth writer
Readers tell me that my novels are filled with significant mothers. Do I realize this? Do I do it on purpose? The truth is, I don't. I think of myself as a writer of family stories. I write more often than not from a male point of view, and I usually begin by focusing on siblings, spouses, even fathers, before I think about the mothers.
ages arrive later milestones novel others plan proud published quite saw sons though
Though I didn't quite plan it that way, I had my two sons at just about the same ages my mother saw me and my sister off to college, and my first novel was published when I was 46. This 'tardiness' isn't something I'm proud of, but I'm happy to be an inspiration to others who arrive at these milestones later than most of us do.
art blanket fiction fine gives logical memoir moral novel practical wholly
A fine memoir is to a fine novel as a well-wrought blanket is to a fancifully embroidered patchwork quilt. The memoir, a logical creation, dissects and dignifies reality. Fiction, wholly extravagant, magnifies it and gives it moral shape. Fiction has no practical purpose. Fiction, after all, is art.
best characters denial fallout misguided novels pick squander survive
All the best novels are about one thing: how we go on. The characters must survive the fallout of their own cowardice, folly, denial or misguided passion. They squander what matters most, and still they pick up the pieces.
ability admire books novel points readers seems whether
My readers often tell me that what they admire about my books is my ability to write from so many points of view. My challenge to myself is whether I'll ever be able to write a novel just from one point of view. It seems impossible.
avoid novels people
Call me territorial or narcissistic, but I avoid novels about people who share my vocation.
fictional head midway novel previous starts time work
I'm a fictional monogamist - I can only work on one thing at a time - but each novel starts growing in my head when I'm about midway through the previous novel.
bookstores depends somewhat
Somewhat sadly, the survival of many bookstores now depends on selling merchandise other than books.
Sometimes the writing leads to the revelations, not the other way around.
art fluent foreign native
Visual art is a foreign language I'm fluent at, but my native language is language.
Virginia Woolf was wrong. You do not need a room of your own to write.
fiction lives nature quite since stuff wonder writers
I wonder if it's in the nature of fiction writers to never quite see their own lives as 'real,' since we are always making stuff up!
answering arise everyday heart inside living love questions simply
I write because I'm in love with language; because I like working for myself, inside my head; and because it's the only way I know to make a stab at answering the never-ending questions of the heart that arise simply from the everyday living of our lives.