Koren Zailckas
Koren Zailckas
Koren Zailckasis a bestselling American writer and memoirist. Her debut, Smashed, was released in 2005 by Viking Penguin and became a New York Times bestseller. Zailckas attended Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton, Massachusetts and Syracuse University...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
writing feelings ambitious
I'd written Smashed not because I was ambitious and not because writing down my feelings was cathartic (it felt more like playing one's own neurosurgeon sans anesthesia). No. I'd made a habit--and eventually a profession--of memoir because I hail from one of those families where shows of emotions are discouraged.
school writing piano
For the first month of school, writing is its own upper. Pounding on my computer keys feels like playing the piano, like arranging words into harmony that sings back to me.
writing ideas cracks
I dont know where the idea originated that memoir writing is cathartic. For me, its always felt like playing my own neurosurgeon, sans anesthesia. As a memoirist, you have to crack your head open and examine every uncomfortable thing in there.
catching ways
I'm getting there. I'm catching up, I think. I feel like I have a ways to go.
again drinking mask memories scary stupid
It was drinking and doing stupid things, or drinking and having scary things happen, but then drinking again to ... mask the memories of it.
deal parents point students
I really think, at this point in time, it does have to be all of us who deal with that as culture. It has to be students and parents and administrations and the government.
almost experience felt fragile poe scared though
Reading Poe was like a near-death experience, the kind that makes you feel fragile and free in its wake. I felt almost as though I'd scared myself alive.
build event exist
I would never make up a character who didn't exist or an event that didn't transpire. If you're a real writer, you have other tools in your toolbox to build drama.
adult looking prove sort
I think when you're 14 years old, I think you're sort of looking for markers that prove you're an adult and you're independent of your parents.
baby bumps children mothers
America, ever the narcissistic mother, prefers baby bumps to children and expectant mothers to full-fledged bum-and-nose-wiping ones.
advantage apart life putting taking
When you are writing a memoir, you have the advantage of knowing how it all ends. It's just taking your life apart and putting it together again.
frida owning
Having a child doesn't make a woman a mother any more than owning a paintbrush makes her Frida Kahlo.
freak nature wonder
It's no wonder the narcissistic mother will always have a place in literature: she's a freak of nature.
add chose doomed early fear hang hindrance mature men praying relationships spare
In my early to mid-20s, a fear of confrontation made it difficult for me to end relationships in a mature or even quasi-sane way. Instead, I would hang on resentfully, praying that my doomed beau would end things first and spare me the displeasure. To add hindrance to hang-up, the men I chose were usually just as stoic as I was.