Tayari Jones
Tayari Jones
Tayari Jonesis an American author and winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction. She was educated at Spelman College, the University of Iowa and Arizona State University...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth30 November 1970
CountryUnited States of America
creating perfect four
It's funny how three or four notes of anger can be struck at once, creating the perfect chord of fury.
children hometown left serial took
My first novel, 'Leaving Atlanta,' took at look at my hometown in the late 1970s, when the city was terrorized by a serial murderer that left at least 29 African-American children dead.
air skins body
Abandonment doesn't have the sharp but dissipating sting of a slap. It's like a punch to the gut, bruising your skin and driving the precious air from your body.
love-is yarn sweaters
I guess this is how love is when it comes undone. No matter how tight you knit the stitches, a sharp tug on a loose thread will transform your warm sweater into a mangled heap of yarn that you can't reuse or repair.
religious believe sacrifice
I am neither religious nor superstitious, but there is something otherworldly about the space where two roads come together. The devil is said to set up shop there if you want to swap your soul for something more useful. If you believe that God can be bribed, it's also the hallowed ground to make sacrifices. In the literal sense, it's also a place to change direction, but once you've changed it, you're stuck until you come to another crossroads, and who knows how long that will be.
way modern adolescence
Adolescence is a modern construct and very American in so many ways.
writing practice honor
I am always urging my students to honor their writing practice, to set up a schedule.
two two-sisters
I do have a sister - I have two sisters.
pain dwelling flavor
Dwelling on pain, spending too much time immersed in it, tasting its flavors, fingering its textures--this makes it only more potent.
issues secret literature
Secret families are really the bedrock issue of Western literature.
literature hallmark american-literature
The adolescent protagonist is one of the hallmarks of American literature.
real writing emotional
When I am writing a story it feels as real as the life I am experiencing off the page. It's an emotional illusion, I guess.
mother coffee heart
And this is how it started. Just with coffee and the exchange of their long stories. Love can be incremental. Predicaments, too. Coffee can start a life just as it can start a day. This was the meeting of two people who were destined to love from before they were born, from before they made choices that would complicate their lives. This love just rolled toward my mother as though she were standing at the bottom of a steep hill. Mother had no hand in this, only heart.
character names feelings
I like straightforward names for my characters. When I get too symbolic with names or places, I start feeling like the characters and the story are less read, and I lose interest.