Kim Edwards
Kim Edwards
Kim Edwards is an American author and educator. She was born in Killeen, Texas, grew up in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, and graduated from Colgate University and The University of Iowa, where she earned an MFA in fiction and an MA in linguistics. She is the author of a story collection, The Secrets of a Fire King, which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award; her stories have been published in The Paris Review, Story, Ploughshares,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth4 May 1958
CountryUnited States of America
We all have secrets. We've all kept secrets. We've had secrets kept from us, and we know how that feels.
Though my stories aren't autobiographical, I do sometimes use things from my life.
I never know as a writer when I set out into a novel where it's going to take me.
I don't think we'll ever lose the desire for people to tell stories or to hear stories or to be entrapped in a beautiful story.
I've always set my stories in places I know well. It frees me up to spend more imaginative time on the characters if I'm not worrying about the logistics.
It's impossible to control the reception of your work - the only thing you can control is the experience of writing itself, and the work you create.
I had a great life even before 'The Memory Keeper's Daughter' took off. I really enjoy teaching.
As a writer and as a reader, I really believe in the power of narrative to allow us ways to experience life beyond our own, ways to reflect on things that have happened to us and a chance to engage with the world in ways that transcend time and gender and all sorts of things.
I swam across Skaneateles Lake, about a mile, when I was 11 years old. I remember feeling when I was in the middle of the lake that I would be there forever, and having no idea where on shore I'd end up. I made it, and I'm proud of the determination and persistence that took.
The secret at the heart of 'The Memory Keeper's Daughter' is something everybody, except for some of the characters, knows in Chapter 1. Some of the narrative tension comes from that distance between what the readers know and what the characters know.
'The Lake of Dreams' grew gradually, over many years, elements and ideas accruing until they gained enough critical mass to become a novel.
I love 'Memory Keeper's Daughter,' but in some ways I think 'The Lake of Dreams' is a stronger book. I was able to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's all you can ever do as a writer. From there on you have no control over it.
This was her life. Not the life she had once dreamed of, not a life her younger self would ever have imagined or desired, but the life she was living, with all its complexities. This was her life, built with care and attention, and it was good.
She didn't love him and he didn't love her; she was like an addiction, and what they were doing had a darkness to it, a weight.