Dani Shapiro
Dani Shapiro
Daneile Joyce "Dani" Shapiro is the author of five novels and the best-selling memoirs Slow Motion and Devotion. She has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and ELLE...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 April 1962
CountryUnited States of America
blow past doors
As a fiction writer, that's been a preoccupation of mine: Can you really just close the door and leave the past back there behind you, or is the door going to blow open at some point?
yoga helpful found
I was doing a lot of yoga and learning to meditate, and I found that extremely helpful, and still do and hopefully always will.
people hearing complicated
If we grew up with nothing, we're complicated with that. That's the thing I keep hearing from people.
yoga practice heritage
When I started meditating, even doing yoga, I felt like it was hard to allow myself to develop any other kind of practice [outside of Judaism], like I was somehow being untrue to my heritage, and that was something I had to get over and was probably the greatest revelation to me.
dream distance writing
I was in my early thirties writing about my early twenties, so there was this way of seeing my younger self from enough of a distance to have perspective but also not to feel that I had to protect myself. My dreams for myself then would have undersold myself in a way.
teacher eye miracle
Our teachers are everywhere. Our teachers are right in front of us, and take so many forms. All we need to do is to open our eyes, to be open to and aware of the possibilities. Otherwise, we walk sightless among miracles.
needs instruments protect
As a writer we are our own instruments; we need to protect our instrument, because no one will protect it if we don't.
community littles hungry
We're all simultaneously separated and connected by our devices, staring into our little screens, and also hungry for experience and community.
waiting feelings pieces
When a writer's whole being is poured into a piece of work, there is never enough. The feeling of finally getting to the end of a piece of work, of making it as good as you can at that moment, is more of a relief than anything else, and then you wait for reviews.
writing opposites practice
I do keep a tiny little journal in which I write passages that I read and want to hold on to. This practice is sort of the opposite of Twitter.
writing garbage-cans house
My journals were a clearing house - a garbage can. Once I was writing seriously, I understood that this was the stuff that didn't belong in my work.
growing-up writing practice
When I was growing up, I had no idea that I could possibly become a writer. I wrote endlessly in journals - a practice I maintained for a long time, well into the writing life I had no idea I could ever have.
thinking disposition states
I think there's something about a writer's disposition, that is, even if unaware, always slightly in a witness state.
glasses littles outsiders
I've always felt like my nose is pressed to glass. I always feel a little bit like an outsider.