Maria Semple
Maria Semple
Maria Keogh Semple is an American novelist and screenwriter. She is the author of This One Is Mineand Where'd You Go, Bernadette. Her television credits include Beverly Hills, 90210, Mad About You, Saturday Night Live, Arrested Development, Suddenly Susan and Ellen...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth17 June 1964
CountryUnited States of America
both complex reads
Both 'Where'd You Go, Bernadette' and my first novel, 'This One is Mine,' are pretty complex on a story level, and fun reads as a result.
good tv work
And dialogue, I'm good at it, and it's because it's the only thing you have to work with in TV writing.
menace society
An artist must create. If she doesn't, she will become a menace to society.
begin born clear learned until
I learned that comedy is born out of strong characters. I won't begin writing a character until I have a clear take on them.
felt fit natural worked
'Mad About You' fit my sensibility the most of any show that I worked on, and as a result, it was really fun. It felt like a very natural fit.
couple drop hard home kid limited race running school serious time
I drop my kid off at school and then race home, and it's a very limited time. I can only do really serious writing for a couple of hours. And then I always go on a walk, I do a one-to-two-hour walk; I don't go running or hard hiking.
puzzling truth uniquely unreliable
There's something uniquely exhilarating about puzzling together the truth at the hands of an unreliable narrator.
amazon car good imposition nature outrageous parking quickly realized shopping store time
I quickly realized that shopping on Amazon had made the idea of parking my car and going into a store feel like an outrageous imposition on my time and good nature.
art courage creating stand takes time
Creating art is painful. It takes time, practice, and the courage to stand alone.
couple hard running
I can only do really serious writing for a couple of hours. And then I always go on a walk. I do a one-to-two-hour walk; I don't go running or hard hiking.
fun letters novel plot puzzling together
'Where'd You Go, Bernadette' is an epistolary novel - one told in letters. I had no idea how much fun it would be, puzzling together the plot with letters and documents.
blamed felt found move novel poisonous seattle state stuck
I naively thought I would quit television writing, move up to Seattle, my novel would come out, and then I'd have a novel writing career, and so I found myself really stuck in this very poisonous self-pitying state and felt like I'd never write again. And I blamed Seattle for that.
happiness
There's a happiness that comes from writing that I won't live without.
books deeply delightful expect good move novel reach roar
When you need a good laugh, do you reach for a book? I don't. I expect books to move me deeply and submerge me in another reality. So when a novel makes me roar with laughter, it's always a delightful surprise.