Sara Zarr
Sara Zarr
Sara Zarris an American writer. She was raised in San Francisco, and now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband. Her first novel, Story of a Girl, was a 2007 National Book Award finalist. She is also the author of Sweethearts and Once Was Lost. All three are published by Little, Brown...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionYoung Adult Author
Date of Birth3 October 1970
CountryUnited States of America
memories hands years
This was a memory I wanted to keep, whole, and recall again and again. When I was fifty years old I wanted to remember this moment on the porch, holding hands with Cameron while he shared himself with me. I didn’t want it to be something on the fringes of my memory like so many other things about Cameron and myself.
memories air want
I don’t want these memories to become slippery, to just disappear into the thin air of life the way most things seem to. I want them to stick – even the bad ones – so I repeat them often.
song memories crazy
Other memories stick, no matter how much you wish they wouldn’t. They’re like a song you hate but can’t ever get completely out of your head, and this song becomes the background noise of your entire life, snippets of lyrics and lines of music floating up and then receding, a crazy kind of tide that never stops.
memories remembrance done
When the remembering was done, the forgetting could begin.
memories love-is circles
Because love, love is never finished. It circles and circles, the memories out of order and not always complete.
memories fear thinking
Forgetting isn't enough. You can paddle away from the memories and think they are gone. But they will keep floating back, again and again and agian. They circle you, like sharks. Until, unless, something, someone? Can do more than just cover the wound.
good knowledge mind neutral patterns recognize recurring terms work
Is it good, bad, or neutral to recognize thematic patterns in your own work? When it comes to recurring themes, I'm of the mind that knowledge is probably not power, at least in terms of the work.
craft please reader trying
I'm so focused on trying to craft the story that I'm in my own little world with it and that process. The one reader I'm trying to please as I write is me, and I'm pretty difficult to please.
characters finished needed reader rewarding says school tells until
When a young reader tells you that they'd never finished a book outside of school until they read yours, or that they really needed to hear something that one of your characters says or thinks... that's just rewarding and humbling.
hope people since
The characters are whole, real people to me that I'm getting to know, and since real people are all flawed, so are my characters, I hope.
discipline good maybe played
I played the clarinet, and my sister played the violin... If we'd had the discipline and the passion, maybe we could have been good.
I don't want to pretend like I'm some intellectual person who understands Flannery O'Connor.
asking characters leading letting lives questions seeing takes unfold
When my characters are questioning things, it's not me leading up to an answer; it's me asking those same questions and letting the characters' lives unfold and seeing where it takes them.
discover excluded favorite lists love ridden task
Making lists of favorite things is, for me, a task ridden with anxiety. What if I've accidentally excluded something I love? What if I discover something new tomorrow that I love even more?