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
book writing thinking
Objectifying your own novel while writing it never really helps. Instead, I guess while you're writing you need to think: This is the novel I want to write. And when you're done you need to think: This is what the novel I wanted to write feels like and reads like and looks like. Other people might call it sweeping or small, but it's the book you chose.
passion thinking people
We are all here, on this earth for only one go around. And everyone thinks their purpose is to just find their passion. But perhaps our purpose is to find what other people need.
book passion thinking
But it's never just been the journals that have made the difference, I don't think. It's also the way the students are with one another . . . the way they talk about books and authors and themselves. Not just their problems, but their passions too. The way they form a little society and discuss whatever matters to them. Books light the fire-whether it's a book that's already written, or an empty journal that needs to be filled in.
art college thinking
But this post-college world felt different from everything that had come before it; art was still central, but now everyone had to think about making a living too, and they did so with a kind of scorn for money except as it allowed them to live the way they wanted to live.
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.
everywhere family games growing knew letter love mother played took
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.
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.
artist ties being-an-artist
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.