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
finding people
My talent isn't so much in traditional research as in finding really smart people and badgering them with questions.
business local preserve
We need to preserve our neighborhoods, our small business, our local economy.
bunk reading room survived tolstoy youth
I survived many a youth hostel bunk room reading Tolstoy by flashlight.
supposed
This is Seattle. We're supposed to have superior taste.
early figure individual unique voice worldview
It was important for me early on to find the voice of each character and figure out what was unique about them and their individual worldview that I could use for comedy or conflict.
gets steer
I steer clear of any novel that gets billed as a 'meditation.'
constant holding life love people reading talking thinking turning
The one constant in my life has been my love of books: reading them, thinking about them, talking about them, holding them, turning people on to new ones.
full literary original submit
Some people, especially literary people, they think, 'I'll write this original script, and it will be full of ideas. I'll submit it, and they'll hire me for television.' That's not the case.
certain change characters complexity necessary novels
Novels demand a certain complexity of narrative and scope, so it's necessary for the characters to change.
became fifteen terms wrote
When I wrote for TV, I was always thinking in terms of character and story. After fifteen years, it became hard-wired in me.
room sideways spent time
Much of the time in the writer's room is spent working on story, and I was always challenging myself to make it more interesting, tighter and more surprising: to come at it sideways in a way that the audience wasn't expecting.
shocking
My first novel didn't sell well. It was really painful and humiliating and shocking to me.
character characters consistent growth narrative needed reason remain week wrote
One reason I find all this character growth and narrative swerving so exhilarating is because I never got to do it when I wrote for TV. Our characters needed to remain consistent from week to week.
amazon buy resolved
On Jan. 1, 2012, I resolved to not buy anything from Amazon for a year.