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The basic rule of storytelling is 'show, don't tell.

Julianna Baggott

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Julianna Baggott
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: September 30
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Wilmington
Delaware
Basic
Rule
Show
Tell
Shows

More quotes by Julianna Baggott

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When you're in the world looking for only one thing, you find it or it finds you. The obsession can be mutual
Julianna Baggott
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I am politically pro-choice, but personally pro-life. I have my faith but refuse to force it on the world at large - especially this world, so brutal and unjust. I cannot make these wrenching personal life and death decisions for others - nor do I believe they should be made by a church run by childless men.
Julianna Baggott
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My oldest sister was an actress living in NYC by the time I was ten, and desperately wanted to be the one in charge of the words.
Julianna Baggott
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She let him go once. Every day demands that she release him over and over again.
Julianna Baggott
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As a writer, my main objective is to tell the story urgently - as if whispering it into one ear - and to know the characters intimately.
Julianna Baggott
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You learn to exploit genre for the more important things - to my mind - like story, character, image, language.
Julianna Baggott
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It's not that I bounce ideas off of my children as much as it is that having children has had a profound effect on the way I see the world. They have mined my soul. They've made me a better person and therefore a more empathetic writer.
Julianna Baggott
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Being cross-genre, you can encounter an image and decide not only how to best express it but what form would express it best.
Julianna Baggott
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Genres are just bottles for the various boats. The boats matter to me.
Julianna Baggott
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Love is selfless, it is a weakness, a giving in, a constant falling.
Julianna Baggott
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One of the reasons I write in different genres is that I get to have the feeling - even fleetingly - that I'm not just writing like Baggott again. I can escape myself.
Julianna Baggott
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If I'd learned nothing else, it was this: If you want to be a great writer, be a man. If you can't be a man, write like one.
Julianna Baggott
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And I know I'm supposed to feel guilty for wanting people to buy my books... and books in general? Novels and poetry, they belong to the realm of art. How dirty of us to try to hawk art! But, after a decade of hand-wringing and apologies, I can't quite muster the guilt anymore.
Julianna Baggott
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I prefer a cluttered workspace.
Julianna Baggott
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When a colleague of mine had a notable New York Times book, I said, turn one of the chapters in the collection into a pitch for a novel and sell it to your publisher.
Julianna Baggott
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Memories are like water.
Julianna Baggott
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Basically if you burst into my office the walls themselves will flutter as if alive - maybe that's the reason for all the wings in 'Pure.
Julianna Baggott
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I try not to divide plot and character. I get to know a character by what they want and fear and how those internal forces play out in their lives.
Julianna Baggott
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I am deeply Catholic and always will be, but I'm no longer a member of the church. I left in 2003 because of the sex abuse scandal.
Julianna Baggott
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Literature has done great work for feminism - writing and reading are a practice of empathy - and great literature will continue to do so.
Julianna Baggott