Amity Gaige
Amity Gaige
Amity Gaigeis an American novelist, known for her books O My Darling, The Folded World and Schroder...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
CountryUnited States of America
love needed novel
I love writing letters. In order to write a novel in first person, I think I needed an addressee.
family home keeps marriage ourselves quite reveal slip truths written
I think marriage and family keeps being written about because that's where we keep our reputations with ourselves - I mean, we can't quite slip the truths we reveal about ourselves at home.
arrived next occupied
I wanted - and still want - to tell my mother's story. She fled Stalin's army in 1944, leaving Latvia, which was to be occupied by the Soviets for the next 50 years, and arrived to the U.S. when she was 11.
great ideally inspires
Reading while I'm writing ideally inspires my competitive side. When I read great writers, I want to be a better writer.
bad
Oh, I'm a pretty bad poet. This has been corroborated by others.
time wrinkle
I loved Madeleine L'Engle as a child - 'A Wrinkle in Time.'
began campus job kept life people several telling urban worked
For several years before I began 'The Folded World,' I worked at an urban college campus and had a job in a tutoring center, and people would come into the tutoring center, and for some reason, they just kept telling me their life stories.
school time work
There would be times when I got so much work that I didn't have time to write. School interfered with writing more than writing with school.
born bus came comfort days ease family felt few life lore rooted says school took
I was born on an even keel. Family lore says I never cried, even at birth. I felt at ease on earth, in the right place. And like many children, I took comfort in life's regularity: Every few days it rained, the school bus came and went, and my parents were rooted in their union.
afraid virginia work
'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' is, to my mind, a work of perfect genius.
art ask eat hear moan taking trying woeful
When you feel the need to moan and groan, laugh with woeful recognition and eat flaky pastries. If you hear yourself taking the art of complaining a little too seriously, ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish, exactly.
self-esteem
To me, self-esteem is not self-love. It is self-acknowledgment, as in recognizing and accepting who you are.
grief childhood remember
Childhood is supposed to be happy, and if you can't remember yours with any happiness, what hope have you later, when life starts handing you fresh grief?
heart open-your-heart
To be a writer, open your heart. Keep it open. You can't be a writer with a closed heart.