Jane Yolen
Jane Yolen
Jane Hyatt Yolenis an American writer of fantasy, science fiction, and children's books. She is the author or editor of more than 280 books, of which the best known is The Devil's Arithmetic, a Holocaust novella. Her other works include the Nebula Award-winning short story Sister Emily's Lightship, the novelette Lost Girls, Owl Moon, The Emperor and the Kite, the Commander Toad series and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight. She gave the lecture for the 1989 Alice G. Smith Lecture,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionYoung Adult Author
Date of Birth11 February 1939
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Time may heal all wounds, but it does not erase the scars.
I have always been jealous of artists. The smell of the studio, the names of the various tools, the look of a half-finished canvas all shout of creation. What do writers have in comparison? Only the flat paper, the clacketing of the typewriter or the scrape of a pen across a yellow page. And then, when the finished piece is presented, there is a small wonder on one hand, a manuscript smudged with erasures or crossed out lines on the other. The impact of the painting is immediate, the manuscript must unfold slowly through time.
How often is the passing of one storm only a prelude to another.
Readers re-create any story to suit their own needs. They re-clothe the story in their own shirts. Put simply: just as we write the story we need to write, they read the story they need to read.
The main plot line is simple: Getting your character to the foot of the tree, getting him up the tree, and then figuring out how to get him down again.
Know, my son, that the enemy will always be with you. He will be in the shadow of your dreams and in your living flesh, for he is the other part of yourself.
Storytelling is our oldest form of remembering the promises we have made to one another and to our various gods, and the promises given in return; it is a way of recording our human emotions and desires and taboos.
Touch magic. Pass it on.
If you want to write, you write. Talent is simply not enough.
Love the writing, love the writing, love the writing... the rest will follow.
Literature is a textually transmitted disease, normally contracted in childhood.
I began as a journalist for my pocketbook and a poet for my soul.
Myths are stories that explain a natural phenomenon. Before humans found scientific explanations for such things as the moon and the sun and rainbows, they tried to understand them by telling stories.
Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.