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
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.
arrive business cash closing dreams hymn obstacles singing son spinning stories time twists walking
In my head, at least, the business of spinning stories has no closing time. Twists in my characters' lives, glimpses of their secrets, obstacles to their dreams... all arrive unbidden when I'm getting cash at the ATM, walking my son to camp, singing a hymn at a wedding.
believer capture felt great hours spend ten time traffic trick
I'm not a believer that you have to write every day. If I felt industrious, I'd spend ten hours a week writing. The writing is going on all the time in my head; the trick is to capture it. Showers are great. Traffic jams are great.
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.
good love start
I love it when I start a book that is so good that all I want to do is get back to my own writing, in a competitive way.
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.
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.
pet public ridiculed school teacher
I was ridiculed in public school for being smart. A teacher's pet.
authors best books compare consider favorite heard home literary love might notes opportunity realize reviews
I read reviews and consider myself pretty 'plugged in' to the literary cosmos, yet one of the things I love best about book-touring is the opportunity to compare notes with favorite booksellers around the country. I always come home with books by authors I'd never heard of - or books I've read about but didn't realize I might love.
avoid novels people
Call me territorial or narcissistic, but I avoid novels about people who share my vocation.
comfort crucial emotion experience inside
In every novel, I write about something - a place, an experience, an emotion - with which I'm intimately familiar, but it's also crucial to me that I take on challenges. If write only inside my comfort zone, I'll suffocate.
early felt few fiction obviously spent time
Finally, in my early 30s, I started writing fiction for the first time as an adult. That felt so scary, and I spent a few years feeling miserably 'behind' my high-achieving friends. But I persevered and obviously have no regrets.