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There is a lot of censorship about writing that's exerted from all directions, from families or governments and society, even the fear of being offensive in some way.

Alice Mattison

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Alice Mattison
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 18
Novelist
New York City
New York
Governments
Families
Society
Fear
Government
Exerted
Writing
Directions
Even
Censorship
Way
Offensive

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I don't think a white person can write accurately and convincingly about what black people experience of oppression.
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I find that I get very excited about what my students are up to and that I get to be the hurdle they need to jump over.
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Maybe we're stuck with who we are.
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I heard a white writer say, 'Oh, I'd never put black people in my writing, I'm afraid I would offend someone by doing it wrong.' I can't bear that!
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I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts.
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I've been astonished how often, when I convince a writer to tell a story more straightforwardly and to tell it more simply and directly, it turns out that this author is great and the story is wonderful.
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There's the belief that we can't be smart enough to write. And certainly censorship of women, too.
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We have to diversify, we have to find work we can do that helps other people while helping ourselves, work that has to do with writing that isn't necessarily just writing saleable novels or getting huge advances.
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I actually think it's sometimes easier for the control freaks to let loose.
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It's a scary thing for fiction writers, when you're always writing from the point of view both as and for someone who is different.
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It's hard to say which of us is luckier, the ones who go through long periods when they can't write or the ones who can write pretty easily.
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Censorship is all around us, I don't think it's innate.
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Anyone with an imagination can write about the day-to-day experiences of someone he or she is not.
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I think that inevitably, the trouble our characters go through is a kind of metaphor for what's happening in ourselves.
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In many cultures, women are sometimes literally kept from learning to read or from going to school.
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I think you have to remember that writing is hard my first editor used to say that to me.
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When I've taught writing to five, six, and seven year olds, it's not very different than talking to an adult writer. They're writers then, and when they get to be young teenagers they're not anymore. You might go and talk to them about writing, and they'll be very self-conscious or will have detached themselves from the group.
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The making of fiction takes literally what is suggested by our imagination.
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Telling someone to be confident in the abstract is not going to make it easier for the unconfident writer to actually get herself or himself to the point of being able to put in the upsetting stuff.
Alice Mattison
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I love to read nonfiction and memoir, but I'm mostly interested in the piece of writing more than the person.
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