Dana Spiotta
Dana Spiotta
Dana Spiottais an American author. Her novel Stone Arabiawas a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Her novel Eat the Documentwas a National Book Award finalist and won the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her novel Lightning Fieldwas a New York Times Notable Book of the year. She was a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
always-trying curiosity attention
I am always trying to do something new and different. The first step is curiosity, questions. You pay attention to what fascinates you. If you can't shake it, there is something there.
moving character ideas
There are lots of authentic, moving characters in so-called systems novels, just as there are certainly deep structural ideas in some character-driven novels.
writing character emotional
I think there's a false division people sometimes make in describing literary novels, where there are people who write systems novels, or novels of ideas, and there are people who write about emotional things in which the movement is character driven. But no good novels are divisible in that way.
meaningful want chance
Tell me it's forbidden, unthinkable, and that's where I want to go. Because the chances are it's complicated, and the complications are meaningful.
mistake realization realizing
I find poignancy in the moments when a person realizes that she has made mistakes. I am not as interested in the mistakes themselves as I am with the consequences and how the person responds to her realization.
daughter character self
I am one Dana when I am talking to my daughter, another when I am talking to the IRS, and another still when I do an interview. These characters are just extreme versions of ordinary human self-switching.
thinking people identity
I am, it seems, interested in people with multiple identities. I think we all have multiple identities.
people trying prejudice
Even if we try to see people in our lives accurately, it is distorted by our own wants and prejudices and experiences.
real inspiration names
I take the outline from a real person as inspiration, but the in-line is totally made up. Which is why I usually invent imaginary names.
real character ideas
I like to mix the real and the imaginary. Sometimes it is characters inspired by real people I know or know of. Sometimes it is a named person from the common cultural dreamscape. And it is tricky, because they have a lot of associated ideas that come with them, and a lot of actual facts.
thinking way culture
I think there's a lot to be learned from pop culture. But at the same time I see the dangers of using it in an exclusive way to construct meaning in your life.
people simplicity ease
Most human things are full of conflict and ambivalence, not ease and simplicity. The world has grown increasingly fundamentalist, and the parameters of discussion have become narrowed. People, when they're fearful, are vulnerable to certainty in rhetoric.
writing want strange
I want what I write to be deeply engaging and strange and true.
writing years risk
The writer has to take risks and go somewhere full of mystery and possibility for the novel to deepen over the years it takes to write it.