Meg Wolitzer
Meg Wolitzer
Meg Wolitzeris an American writer, best known for The Wife, The Ten-Year Nap, The Uncoupling, and The Interestings. She currently works as an instructor in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTeacher
Date of Birth28 May 1959
CountryUnited States of America
baby children taken
Being an adult child was an awkward, inevitable position. You went about your business in the world: tooling around, giving orders, being taken seriously, but there were still these two people lurking somewhere who in a split second could reduce you to nothing. In their presence, you were a big-headed baby again, crawling instead of walking.
teacher children parent
But it had no doubt sprung from true emotion, for all that parents ever wanted, really, was for you to love their child the way they did.
children unhappy anxious
Even if you yourself were unhappy and anxious, whenever you glimpsed happiness in your child, you suddenly became happy too.
lonely children long
You stayed around your children as long as you could, inhaling the ambient gold shavings of their childhood, and at the last minute you tried to see them off into life and hoped that the little piece of time you’d given them was enough to prevent them from one day feeling lonely and afraid and hopeless. You wouldn’t know the outcome for a long time.
children parent jackpot
The child who was happy with herself meant the parents had won the jackpot.
drawn mind remain
I've always been drawn to writing for young readers. The books that I read growing up remain in my mind very strongly.
break created crossword favorite good knew later online playing scrabble strange writer
My being a writer and playing Scrabble are connected. If I have a good writing day, I'll take a break and play online Scrabble. My favorite word as a child was 'carrion,' before I knew what it meant. I later created crossword puzzles, which was a lot about puns, and how words would create these strange, strange things.
accept allow book feeling forth freedom move readers time trust wrote
When I wrote 'The Interestings,' I wanted to let time unspool, to give the book the feeling of time passing. I had to allow myself the freedom to move back and forth in time freely, and to trust that readers would accept this.
certain hard people themselves time
I think everyone is always measuring themselves against other people to a certain degree; it happens automatically, and it's hard not to be this way at least some of the time.
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I really love Scrabble. I played it with my mother growing up. We took it everywhere with us. We didn't know then about the two letter words. Who knew that AA, or more controversially, ZA, or QI were words? We were a games family generally.
falls others people time
In 'The Interestings' I wanted to write about what happens to talent over time. In some people talent blooms, in others it falls away.
books both contain convey emotional experience leap realizing seeing sitting strong words
'Charlotte's Web,' which I read sitting on my mother's lap, was the most emotional experience: that was when I made the leap from seeing how to untangle words to realizing how books both contain and convey strong feelings.
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Wasn't the whole point of being an artist, or at least part of it, that you didn't have to wear a tie?
powerful age stronger
After a certain age, you felt a need not to be alone. It grew stronger, like a radio frequency, until finally it was so powerful that you were forced to do something about it.