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" I'm not at all snobby about book prizes and how they pollute the world of literature. Just like with the Olympics, a little bit of competition gets people truly engrossed in the business of literature. "

Emma Donoghue

Business

Book

Competition

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" I'm finding that success is way more time-consuming than failure ever was. "

Emma Donoghue

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Success

" It's painful to consider anything but writing. "

" I've always been religiously inclined, but it doesn't come up in most of my books. "

Emma Donoghue

Always

Been

" You know, plenty of people headed off to Canada or America on the basis of government information, propaganda campaigns. Often you'd go off with a brochure in hand and you'd turn up and it wouldn't be like that at all. "

" Writers should be applauded for their ability to make things up. "

Emma Donoghue

Should

Make

" You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well. "

" I'm a huge planner, more and more so as the years go by. "

Emma Donoghue

Years

Planner

" The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side. "

" Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can't. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what's going to happen in each chapter and each scene. "

" I would say I have sort of a natural gift for character, and following one person's point of view at a time, and dialogue, but I'm not naturally good at strong plot. "

" I love it when novels contain a broad cast of characters, including queer ones. "

" I read three books a week. "

" I'm constantly saying, 'I read a fascinating article in 'The New Yorker'... ' I say it so often that sometimes I think I have nothing interesting to say myself, I merely regurgitate 'The New Yorker.' "

" Ah yes, 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. "

" One thing I like about historical fiction is that I'm not constantly focusing on me, or people like me; you're obliged to concentrate on lives that are completely other than your own. "

Emma Donoghue

You

Historical

" I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way. "

" I am clumsy, a late and nervous driver, and despise all sports except a little gentle dancing or yoga. "

" Every parent has those moments where they look at their child and think, 'There's a demon in those eyes and no one can see it but me!' "

" I hate desks; they make me feel like a child doing homework. "

" I have never been depressed or thrown a plate, which I attribute to the cathartic effects of writing books about people whose lives are more grueling than mine. "

" You're meant to have an unhappy childhood to be a writer, but there's a lot to be said for a very happy one that just lets you get on with it. "

" For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have. "

" There's no neutral language about travel. Either travel is described in ways that make it sound kind of shallow or just glossy or silly or a way for rich people to spend their time; or else travel is often described in quite derogatory ways, you know, like immigrants swarming across borders, for instance. "

" Any parent knows how to be the ideal parent. "

" A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places. "

" Kids delight in 'magical thinking', whether in the form of the Tooth Fairy or the saints: whether you see these as comforting lies or eternal verities, they are part of how we help kids make sense of the world. "

" I come out of an academic background, and I'm aware that what I'm doing is simultaneously research and fiction. I want to meet both those obligations. "

" I'm named after Jane Austen's Emma, and I've always been able to relate to her. She's strong, confident but quite tactless. "

" I remember a period where my publisher said to me, 'Look, your historical work is selling much better than your contemporary work, so please give us more historicals.' "

Emma Donoghue

Remember

Better

" I think the only difference between me and other people is that when I hear of an interesting historical incident, I immediately write it down and Google it. "

Emma Donoghue

Down

Interesting