Elizabeth McCracken
Elizabeth McCracken
Elizabeth McCrackenis an American author...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
born children family parents sort speak war worry
My mother's family didn't speak much about Europe: My mother was born in 1935, and her new-world parents were the sort who didn't want to worry their children about the war.
sort
I can't imagine not joking even at the worst of times. And for me, it's sort of automatic.
based capital clay european illustrate imaginary met sculpting second sort
When I first met my husband, he was sculpting Vilnius out of clay - a sort of Vilnius, anyhow: a map of an imaginary European city based on the Lithuanian capital - to illustrate his second novel.
campus office recently sort university work
I work in my office on the campus of the University of Texas. It's the sort of place described as 'book-lined', but it's recently tipped over into 'fire-hazard' territory.
absolutely appalling best childhood future religion sort
I've always been absolutely appalling about the future, but I sort of think that was my childhood religion. We were future deniers. You did your best in the present, which was all around you.
influences recent steal suddenly worried
When it comes to other people's writing, my older influences are more powerful than more recent ones, partially because I'm now more worried that I'll suddenly accidentally steal something from another writer.
children claim conversation directly funny natural obsessed opening qualities truth work
Ordinarily, I'd claim that I'd never write directly about my children, but the opening conversation of 'Peter Elroy' is a verbatim conversation that my children had that I just loved: morbid, funny, passionate, and obsessed with the truth of things - all natural qualities of children that I'd like my work to contain.
belongs comic curious elders peer strip whether wonder
A comic strip that your parents read when they were young is a curious thing: it's an heirloom, and it's also intimate. You peer through windows and look at the things that made your elders laugh, and then you wonder whether the laugh really belongs to you.
humor life motto speaking trouble
You write the way you think about the world. My motto in times of trouble - and I'm speaking of life, not writing - is 'no humor too black.'
art graphic narrative wrestle
Some graphic narrative art presses against the panel: you wrestle with it at the level of the paper.
itself life outside whatever
Sadness was something I was thinking about in my life outside of writing, so it wormed itself into whatever I wrote.
characters felt revising scratched stuff touched
Revising stuff lately, I was shocked to see how often my characters scratched their ankles, felt their feet, and touched their own ears.
afraid birth dead given grieving recovering remember
Remember that a woman who has given birth to a dead child has given birth and is recovering physically, too. Don't be afraid of grieving parents.
good hard understood
Once I started writing novels, I understood how hard it was to write really good short stories.