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Identity politics are wearisome you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer.

Emma Donoghue

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Emma Donoghue
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: October 24
Literary Historian
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
Speaking
Group
Identity
Groups
Writer
Politics
Wearisome

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I've been in a long and happy relationship for 22 years and it's never inspired me to write anything. It's too good - nothing to say. Problems, conflict, that's what makes for good stories.
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The paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence.
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A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.
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I was anticipating that some readers might misread [the book] ROOM itself as a hymn to homeschooling.
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I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way.
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I think I know what it's like to have a family that the outside world sees as peculiar or lacking.
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Maybe I’m a human, but I’m a me-and-Ma as well.
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I must say, in the case of Room, both the book and the film, I don't think being a lesbian author held me back at all.
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I am clumsy, a late and nervous driver, and despise all sports except a little gentle dancing or yoga.
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I always wince a little bit when I send me to each of my new books. I wince at submitting myself to my father's judgment. But, of course, he's such a fond father that he always writes back, saying it's the greatest thing ever written.
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...Sometimes I suspect that what had really happened was that we became more resigned, more cynical, raised our pain thresholds as we lowered our expectations. All in all, settled for less.
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With my first book, I was hired to write a draft of the script. I was so young and less confident. They put me through seven or eight drafts and it was just getting worse and worse, and then the film was never made.
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I think I read Susan Brownmiller's classic book called Femininity when I was about 16. So yeah, it's been part of my mindset since a very early age. To me, what's crucial is to tell women's stories but also to tell them in a way that is fearless.
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You cannot predict literary success the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well.
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At the door, there was one of those moment when two people realize that they like each other more than they know each other. This is nicer than the opposite situation, but more awkward. You try to remember the protocol for touching. You hate to gush, or presume to much, yet you are unwilling to let the moment pass without without some gesture
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This is a bad story.” “Sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.” “No, you should,” I say. “But—” “I don’t want there to be bad stories and me not know them.
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I'm finding that success is way more time-consuming than failure ever was.
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Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.
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Everyone's got a different story.
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I found motherhood a crash course in existentialism (what is my purpose in life, am I mistress or slave of my destiny, when the hell do I get some sleep?) and [the book] ROOM was the result.
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