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" I am not opposed to e-readers. Any technology that encourages the reading of literature is a good thing. "
Julia Glass
Reading
Good
Am
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" In my head, at least, the business of spinning stories has no closing time. Twists in my characters' lives, glimpses of their secrets, obstacles to their dreams... all arrive unbidden when I'm getting cash at the ATM, walking my son to camp, singing a hymn at a wedding. "
Julia Glass
Son
Business
Dreams
" From fifth grade on, I worked at our public library. The pay, a pittance, was almost superfluous. All through high school, I looked forward to summer as the time when I could work at the library four or five days a week. I was never a camp counselor, a lifeguard, a scooper of ice cream. "
Julia Glass
Library
School
Time
" Though I'm a New Englander, I'm very indoorsy once the mercury drops. "
Julia Glass
Very
Drops
New
" Finally, in my early 30s, I started writing fiction for the first time as an adult. That felt so scary, and I spent a few years feeling miserably 'behind' my high-achieving friends. But I persevered and obviously have no regrets. "
Julia Glass
Friends
Writing
Early
" Colorful garments - ball gowns, kimonos, evening pajamas - made from yards upon yards of iridescent silk or velvet. I own an unjustifiable number of such outfits and jump at the chance to wear them. Against the etiquette about which I am otherwise all too conscious, I frequently, and unrepentantly, overdress for the occasion. "
Julia Glass
Own
Jump
Evening
" In every novel, I write about something - a place, an experience, an emotion - with which I'm intimately familiar, but it's also crucial to me that I take on challenges. If write only inside my comfort zone, I'll suffocate. "
Julia Glass
Comfort Zone
Experience
Me
" In my fairly disorganized life, yellow stickies are too easily lost, and as for software, I try to avoid using my computer as much more than a typewriter and a post office. I rely on my lifelong habit of daydreaming to spin my stories. "
Julia Glass
Try
Yellow
Office
" Nothing teaches great writing like the very best books do. Yet, good teachers often help students cross that bridge, and I have to say that I had a few extraordinary English teachers in high school whom I still credit for their guidance. "
Julia Glass
Best
School
Help
" I read reviews and consider myself pretty 'plugged in' to the literary cosmos, yet one of the things I love best about book-touring is the opportunity to compare notes with favorite booksellers around the country. I always come home with books by authors I'd never heard of - or books I've read about but didn't realize I might love. "
Julia Glass
Love
Best
Home
" Virginia Woolf was wrong. You do not need a room of your own to write. "
Julia Glass
Own
You
Wrong
" Chemotherapy can be a long, tough haul - for me, it went on for six months - and the best doctors and nurses become, if only for that period of time, as essential in your life as friends or spouses. "
Julia Glass
Life
Best
Tough
" I do gravitate toward 19th century writers, and I never mind being compared with some of the most memorable writers from that era. I mean, George Eliot is my absolute heroine. "
Julia Glass
Some
Never
Most
" If I'm lucky enough to see the day when my sons are living independently, maybe with families of their own, I'll still be wondering how I can be a better mother and worrying about the things I overlooked back when they lived under my roof. "
Julia Glass
Mother
Day
Better
" The books I read, if they intrude on my writing, do so as weather will pass through and touch a landscape - affecting it, yes, but only now and then leaving a permanent mark. "
Julia Glass
Weather
Leaving
Landscape
" My readers often tell me that what they admire about my books is my ability to write from so many points of view. My challenge to myself is whether I'll ever be able to write a novel just from one point of view. It seems impossible. "
Julia Glass
Challenge
View
Me
" The best booksellers are like trustworthy pushers: Whatever they're dealing, you take it. "
Julia Glass
Best
You
Whatever
" I'm a fictional monogamist - I can only work on one thing at a time - but each novel starts growing in my head when I'm about midway through the previous novel. "
Julia Glass
Work
Time
I Can
" I grew up in a home where animals were ever-present and often dominated our lives. There were always horses, dogs, and cats, as well as a revolving infirmary of injured wildlife being nursed by my sister the aspiring vet. "
Julia Glass
Sister
Animals
Home
" The old adage is, 'Write what you know.' But if you only do that, your work becomes claustrophobic. I say, 'Write what you want to know.' "
Julia Glass
Work
You
Old
" When I give myself over to a good novel, I surrender to the truths fashioned from one writer's heart, mind and soul. I do not waste a nanosecond wondering whether what I'm reading 'really happened.' "
Julia Glass
Myself
Heart
Soul
" I have struggled for decades now with the fear of and resistance to change - mostly in the realms of technology, transportation, and the ways people choose to communicate. If I had a theme song, it would be that lovely song 'I'm Old-Fashioned,' as sung by Ella Fitzgerald. "
Julia Glass
Change
Fear
Technology
" I'm not a believer that you have to write every day. If I felt industrious, I'd spend ten hours a week writing. The writing is going on all the time in my head; the trick is to capture it. Showers are great. Traffic jams are great. "
Julia Glass
Writing
Great
Time
" Over time, it's occurred to me that my protagonists all originate in some aspect of myself that I find myself questioning or feeling uncomfortable about. "
Julia Glass
Myself
Feeling
Uncomfortable
" A fine memoir is to a fine novel as a well-wrought blanket is to a fancifully embroidered patchwork quilt. The memoir, a logical creation, dissects and dignifies reality. Fiction, wholly extravagant, magnifies it and gives it moral shape. Fiction has no practical purpose. Fiction, after all, is art. "
Julia Glass
Art
Reality
Creation
" Readers tell me that my novels are filled with significant mothers. Do I realize this? Do I do it on purpose? The truth is, I don't. I think of myself as a writer of family stories. I write more often than not from a male point of view, and I usually begin by focusing on siblings, spouses, even fathers, before I think about the mothers. "
Julia Glass
Myself
Truth Is
Truth
" I wonder if it's in the nature of fiction writers to never quite see their own lives as 'real,' since we are always making stuff up! "
Julia Glass
Own
Nature
Always
" I was ridiculed in public school for being smart. A teacher's pet. "
Julia Glass
School
Being Smart
Teacher
" Though I didn't quite plan it that way, I had my two sons at just about the same ages my mother saw me and my sister off to college, and my first novel was published when I was 46. This 'tardiness' isn't something I'm proud of, but I'm happy to be an inspiration to others who arrive at these milestones later than most of us do. "
Julia Glass
Proud
Sister
College
" Call me territorial or narcissistic, but I avoid novels about people who share my vocation. "
Julia Glass
Avoid
People
Me
" My first draft is always way too long; my books start out with delusions of 'War and Peace' - and must be gently disabused. My editor is brilliant at taking me to the point where I do all the necessary cutting on my own. I like to say she's a midwife rather than a surgeon. "
Julia Glass
She
Start
War