Maria Semple
Maria Semple
Maria Keogh Semple is an American novelist and screenwriter. She is the author of This One Is Mineand Where'd You Go, Bernadette. Her television credits include Beverly Hills, 90210, Mad About You, Saturday Night Live, Arrested Development, Suddenly Susan and Ellen...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth17 June 1964
CountryUnited States of America
few knew people ted time
When I came back from my first TED, very few people knew what it was. But around the time I was sitting down to write 'Where'd You Go, Bernadette,' in 2010, TED was exploding.
famous pick
My summer reading suggestion: Pick a really famous, really long novel.
novelist novels took
I must say, it was a lot easier writing novels than I thought it would be. I think it's because I'm a novelist at heart, and it took me a while to figure that out.
computer good gritty ideas intense sitting super walks work
On my walks, that's when the good ideas come. The kind of hard, gritty work is when you're sitting at the computer and it's kind of intense and you're kind of in super control of it - the walks are when you let go. That's when the really big breakthroughs come in, and it's very strange.
muse not-sure
Unfortunately Seattle is my muse, for the better or worse of Seattle - I'm not sure.
supposed
This is Seattle. We're supposed to have superior taste.
doomed
If you're an artist and you're on Twitter, you are doomed to mediocrity.
camaraderie
I love the camaraderie of a writers' room.
bunk reading room survived tolstoy youth
I survived many a youth hostel bunk room reading Tolstoy by flashlight.
blamed felt found move novel poisonous seattle state stuck
I naively thought I would quit television writing, move up to Seattle, my novel would come out, and then I'd have a novel writing career, and so I found myself really stuck in this very poisonous self-pitying state and felt like I'd never write again. And I blamed Seattle for that.
puzzling truth uniquely unreliable
There's something uniquely exhilarating about puzzling together the truth at the hands of an unreliable narrator.
thrill
I just feel like there's this illicit thrill in reading other people's mail and spying on their lives.
fearless treasure surprise
Maggie Shipstead's prose is so graceful and muscular, so dazzling, so sure-handed and fearless, that at times I had to remind myself to breathe. Astonish Me is a treasure of small surprises.
tvs television interest
My strength as a TV writer was my total lack of interest in television.