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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.

Emma Donoghue

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Emma Donoghue
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: October 24
Literary Historian
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
Book
Worse
First
Seven
Drafts
Writing
Getting
Hired
Made
Less
Draft
Never
Write
Confident
Film
Script
Young
Scripts
Firsts
Eight

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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 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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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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I watch his hands, they're lumpy but clever. Is there a word for adults when they aren't parents? Steppa laughs. Folks with other things to do?
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I remember manners, that's when people are scared to make other persons mad.
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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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Identity politics are wearisome you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer.
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For all the books in his possession, he still failed to read the stories written plain as day in the faces of the people around him.
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The sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.
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Everyone's got a different story.
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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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So much as I enjoy big novels of epic sweep, I often find, say, if they follow several generations, by the third generation, I'm not caring about the people anymore.
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...sentences swallowed and sung back and swallowed all over again. She was made entirely out of words.
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There may be certain genres that men dominate, but fiction not so much. The question of prizes is tricky because there are so many prizes.
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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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We used to call it her Cinderella complex, because often when she had agreed to go out in the evening she would be seized by panic and announce that she had nothing to wear.
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And as the years flowed by, some villagers told travelers of a beast and a beauty who lived in the castle and could be seen walking on the battlements, and others told of two beauties, and others, of two beasts.
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When I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each ideas jumping into the other’s head, like coulouring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green.
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I hate desks they make me feel like a child doing homework.
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