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Jesmyn Ward Quotes


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Quotes by Jesmyn Ward

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I've always used Southern rappers in epigraphs for my novels. For 'Sing, Unburied, Sing,' I wanted to use Big K.R.I.T. - because I have so much respect for the lyrical depth of their music.

~Jesmyn Ward

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Throughout my career, when I have been rejected, there was sometimes subtext, and it was this: People will not read your work because these are not universal stories.

~Jesmyn Ward

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I try to treat writing as part of my daily routine: I write for at least two hours, five days per week. I tend to write at home, in a room I've set aside for the task. I don't work well in cafes or busy, loud spaces, although I wish I could. It would mean greater flexibility for me.

~Jesmyn Ward

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I worked with several writers at the University of Michigan: Nicholas Delbanco, Peter Ho Davies, Eileen Pollack, Laura Kasischke, and Thomas Lynch, who told me the same thing over and over again: Persist. Read, write, and improve: tell your stories.

~Jesmyn Ward

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I recently read a collection of stories called 'Boondock Kollage,' by Regina Bradley. The stories follow multiple characters through the South, through the past and present. I loved reading that book: the first time I read the opening story, I was breathless and incoherent.

~Jesmyn Ward

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I'm always thinking about time. That's one of themes I return to in my work, the way the past bears on the present, the way that time is not linear, and how that expresses itself in people's everyday lives.

~Jesmyn Ward

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Faulkner is a really important figure in southern literature. I wrestle with him and his legacy every time I sit down and write a piece of fiction.

~Jesmyn Ward

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In the South, there is more overt racism. It's more willfully ignorant and brazen. But it's not as if by moving I'm going to be able to escape institutionalized racism. It's not as though my life won't be twisted and impacted by racism anymore. It will.

~Jesmyn Ward

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As a parent, you want to protect your children, but the fact of racism in this country, of inequality, that is still a lesson my children are going to have to learn. I can't protect my kids from that.

~Jesmyn Ward

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If I could chat with anyone, it would be Claire Messud, because I think she could tell me how to get better as a writer as I age.

~Jesmyn Ward

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Novelist

Born: Unknown

Links

Find Jesmyn Ward on Amazon

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