Koren Zailckas
Koren Zailckas
Koren Zailckasis a bestselling American writer and memoirist. Her debut, Smashed, was released in 2005 by Viking Penguin and became a New York Times bestseller. Zailckas attended Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton, Massachusetts and Syracuse University...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
freak nature wonder
It's no wonder the narcissistic mother will always have a place in literature: she's a freak of nature.
almost experience felt fragile poe scared though
Reading Poe was like a near-death experience, the kind that makes you feel fragile and free in its wake. I felt almost as though I'd scared myself alive.
build event exist
I would never make up a character who didn't exist or an event that didn't transpire. If you're a real writer, you have other tools in your toolbox to build drama.
adult looking prove sort
I think when you're 14 years old, I think you're sort of looking for markers that prove you're an adult and you're independent of your parents.
baby bumps children mothers
America, ever the narcissistic mother, prefers baby bumps to children and expectant mothers to full-fledged bum-and-nose-wiping ones.
advantage apart life putting taking
When you are writing a memoir, you have the advantage of knowing how it all ends. It's just taking your life apart and putting it together again.
frida owning
Having a child doesn't make a woman a mother any more than owning a paintbrush makes her Frida Kahlo.
add chose doomed early fear hang hindrance mature men praying relationships spare
In my early to mid-20s, a fear of confrontation made it difficult for me to end relationships in a mature or even quasi-sane way. Instead, I would hang on resentfully, praying that my doomed beau would end things first and spare me the displeasure. To add hindrance to hang-up, the men I chose were usually just as stoic as I was.
anger controlled supposed sure
I think what I learned in research is that as Americans, we're very distrustful of anger. We're not sure if we should repress it. The idea that anger is supposed to be controlled is American, and we try to keep it out of our homes.
bad depend examples fantasy powerful remain stuck using version versions women
As long as we depend on other women for self-esteem, using them as bad examples or fantasy versions - special, powerful - of ourselves, they remain stuck in a narcissistic version of themselves, too.
bothered claim confuses feeding half
Why is Kris Jenner a powerhouse? Because some part of us confuses fame and infamy, too. If she really bothered us half as much as we claim she does, we'd look away and stop feeding her empire.
examine felt memoir originated playing
I don't know where the idea originated that memoir writing is cathartic. For me, it's always felt like playing my own neurosurgeon, sans anesthesia. As a memoirist, you have to crack your head open and examine every uncomfortable thing in there.
beat board candy fits fly lucky plastic stroke win
My parents always swore that in my childhood they had to let me win at board games. If, by the lucky stroke of the plastic wheel, my father would accidentally beat me at Candy Land, I would fly into fits of bawling that I'm told would last for hours. If I couldn't triumph, I didn't want to play.
anyone stature tendency
My short stature may have something to do with my tendency to shout when enraged. How else is anyone going to hear me way down here?