Serious writers pretend they don't care about film adaptations of their work, but it's a colossal lie: We all care.
I say that glorious prose is a fine and laudable thing, but without an enthralling story, it's just so much verbal tapioca. Simply put, the best books have both, and the best writers disparage neither.
As a writer, I have this compulsion to take characters who appear formidable and bombard them with adversity until they crumble. What's interesting is watching them rise again, and seeing how they've changed and grown, if indeed they have.
I was 11 years old and horse-obsessed. New York City was an unfortunate place for a girl like me to be growing up.
As a writer, I have this compulsion to take characters who appear formidable and bombard them with adversity until they crumble. What's interesting is watching them rise again, and seeing how they've changed and grown, if indeed they have.
Every so often in life, you encounter a brilliant idea. Usually, at least in my case, it's somebody else's idea.
A good story, a story resonant and remarkable, can be remade endlessly to tell new sides of itself for new generations of readers.
Did I become a theater person right then, sitting in the Imperial Theater, waiting for the high piccolo note at the start of 'Pippin'? Maybe.
Most of all, I am struck by an irony central to the lot of a purebred dog: As it attains the hallmarks of its breed, it seems to simultaneously relinquish its basic dogginess, until it is less a dog than a Pomeranian, Collie or Bloodhound.
A good story, a story resonant and remarkable, can be remade endlessly to tell new sides of itself for new generations of readers.
Like many people, I have a fascination with lies and the people who tell them. I wouldn't say I've never told a lie, but I don't think I've ever told one without both assuming I would be found out and feeling absolutely rotten about it.
A successful birth is not a birth without drugs or monitors or surgery. A successful birth is when you're alive and the baby's alive.
I made it to London aged six, an event I recorded in my diary with coloured markers to convey my sense of occasion. And in 1983, after graduating from college, I returned to spend two years at Cambridge University.
Most of all, I am struck by an irony central to the lot of a purebred dog: As it attains the hallmarks of its breed, it seems to simultaneously relinquish its basic dogginess, until it is less a dog than a Pomeranian, Collie or Bloodhound.
A mutt is a dog. He is the stuff of dogginess, a creature allied to species, not breed, and untrammeled by human hand or preference.
When you get right down to it, there's something uniquely satisfying in being gripped by a great plot, in begrudging whatever real-world obligations might prevent you from finding out what happens next.