Heidi Julavits
Heidi Julavits
Heidi Suzanne Julavits is an American author and co-editor of The Believer magazine. She has been published in The Best Creative Nonfiction Vol. 2, Esquire, Culture+Travel, Story, Zoetrope All-Story, and McSweeney’s Quarterly. Her novels include The Mineral Palace, The Effect of Living Backwards, The Uses of Enchantment, and The Vanishers...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
fashion regret character
When I was writing my first draft, and feeling grandiose, I e-mailed an artist/clothing designer I know and suggested we collaborate on a fashion line inspired by the outfits my characters wore. I regret that we never did that.
husband character clothes
When my husband first read a draft, he said, "You spend too much time describing the characters' outfits." He was right. I removed much of the clothes talk, but quite a bit remained.
matter no-matter-what
No matter what you wear, not everyone is going to understand what you're saying.
fun writing challenges
Structure is, for me, the most fun challenge about writing novels.
fake-people school thinking
I don't think fake people living in a fake house in a fake suburb are any less dismissible or believable than a fake psychic attending a fake school in a fake town. Nothing's inherently believable about any kind of fiction, because all of it's untrue.
writing fake challenges
As such, anything is always possible, even if your protagonist is a plumber. But it's the possibility, the limitless possibilities, of any fake life, that make writing about it so challenging.
writing psychics creative-space
Whether I'm writing about plumbers or psychics or psychic plumbers, I want to find a creative space that imprisons me usefully, so I can deviate with purpose.
sometimes reviews bad-reviews
Sometimes it can be useful to read your bad reviews.
song talking two
Whenever I hang out with my female friends, I feel like context is never needed. They can just say two words about something, it's like hearing the first two notes of a song and you can always identify the song. They can just say a word and I know exactly what they're talking about.
husband ideas accusing-me
My husband is always accusing me of being a context-free individual. He asks something and he has no idea where it came from or what it related to. I have to supply him with way more supplementary information than I ever have to supply my female friends.
thinking challenges desire
I don't think women are, by definition, toxic to one another. I think women are simultaneously competitive toward and idolatrous of each other. I thrive on that challenge and that desire.
smart inspire style
I surround myself with women who inspire me to be more ambitious, and who constantly astonish me with their magnetism, style, and smarts.
pain thinking needs
I really did for a few weeks think, I'm in pain because the world needs me to save it. Which is so ridiculous and egotistical.
spiritual teacher pain
A friend of mine urged me to see my pain as an opportunity. And since the same psychic that contacted Dion Fortune had told me that I was a "teacher" - she didn't mean at Columbia, she meant in the spiritual sense - I decided my affliction was the universe telling me that it was time to stop writing fiction and become the spiritual guru I was clearly meant to be.