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
thinking empathy attention
I think of empathy as a set of cumulative effects, ideally - that it can be a force shaping your habits, shaping where you put your attention and then - if you're hard on yourself, in good ways - pushing you to translate that attention into action, on whatever scale.
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.
issues empathy limits
Learning the edges or limits or sources of friction in empathy was one of the big issues for me.
knowing empathy knows
Empathy requires knowing that you know nothing.
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.
empathy choices brain
Empathy isn’t just something that happens to us — a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain — it’s also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves.
animals curly full houses stuffed yard
The 'here' of Watts is pastel houses with window gratings in curly patterns. 'Here' is yard sales with bins full of stuffed animals and used water guns. Here is Crips turf.
redeeming subjects
Redeeming subjects from cliche is its own pleasure and privilege.
county facade handsome jail pass stone towers twin
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.
sentiments suspects ifs
Perhaps if we say it straight, we suspect, if we express our sentiments too excessively or too directly, we'll find we're nothing but banal.
girl mother hurt
We don't want to be wounds ("No, you're the wound!") but we should be allowed to have them, to speak about having them, to be something more than just another girl who has one. We should be able to do these things without failing the feminism of our mothers, and we should be able to represent women who hurt without walking backward into a voyeuristic rehashing of the old cultural models.
teacher lucky way
I've been lucky enough to work with extraordinary teachers along the way, and I'm excited to share what I've learned with graduate students at SNHU. I'm just as excited for what I'll learn from them.
thinking offering curiosity
I like thinking of the writer as a kind of curator; the collection as curiosity cabinet - in a non-demeaning, non-objectifying sense - but an array, a set of offerings.