Leslie Jamison
Leslie Jamison
Leslie Jamisonis an American novelist and essayist. Her work has been published in Best New American Voices 2008, A Public Space, and Black Warrior Review. Originally from Los Angeles, she attended Harvard University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and undertook a Ph.D. in English literature at Yale. Her father is the economist and global health researcher Dean Jamison...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
CountryUnited States of America
nice book writing
Whenever I've been stuck on a project, it's always brought me solace to the return to books that moved me in the past. It's a nice way to get outside my own head; and it brings me back to one of the most important reasons I write at all: to bring some pleasure to readers, to make them think or feel.
beautiful color jail
You pass the old L.A. County jail, which is surprisingly beautiful. It's got a handsome stone facade and stately columns. The new L.A. County jail - called The Twin Towers - isn't beautiful at all; it's a stucco panopticon the color of sick flesh.
empathy our-actions might
Empathy is cloaked in our actions - as in, we might be experiencing empathy but not realize it's empathy.
people empathy feelings
I needed people to deliver my feelings back to me in a form that was legible. Which is a superlative kind of empathy to seek, or to supply: an empathy that rearticulates more clearly what it's shown.
drunk chocolate melting
I loved the full heat of being drunk, like I was made of melting chocolate and spreading in all directions.
thinking should-have cake
We think we should have to work in order to feel. We want to have our cake resist us; and then we want to eat it, too.
issues empathy limits
Learning the edges or limits or sources of friction in empathy was one of the big issues for me.
sick mind finishing
After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always put it aside for a while. It doesn't matter if it's a story or a novel, I find that when it's still fresh in my mind I'm either thoroughly sick of its flaws or completely blind to them. Either way, I'm unable to make substantive edits of any value.
writing mean people
When people ask what kind of nonfiction I write, I say 'all kinds,' but really I mean I don’t write any kind at all: I’m trying to dissolve the borders between memoir and journalism and criticism by weaving them together.
knowing empathy knows
Empathy requires knowing that you know nothing.
real perfect admitting
In my own life as a reader I experience real moments of alienation when a writer feels too perfect, or like even the flaws they are admitting are somehow noble, or dysfunctional in an overly edgy, aesthetically pleasing way.
people empathy theft
When bad things happened to other people, I imagined them happening to me. I didn’t know if this was empathy or theft.
pain too-much imagine
Imagining someone else's pain with too much surety can be as damaging as failing to imagine it.
character writing gestures
It's one of the most liberating things I experience in writing - letting yourself get rid of a gesture or character or plot point that always nagged, even if you couldn't admit to yourself that it did.