When we read about reading, we get to share an experience that is usually kept private. Incisive descriptions of reading help us to understand what is going on when our eyes move across words on the page. — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
How wonderful it would be to scatter words as they rise to consciousness, to let them lie where they fall. — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
Writing that flirts with incoherence can just as readily flounder as writing characterized by simplicity and composure. There is no reliable formula for originality,… — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
I don't think Donald Barthelme would have minded being called a confusing writer. Confusion was a favorite subject for him in his essays and… — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
Vladimir Nabokov on 'Bleak House' or Henry James on 'The House of the Seven Gables' prove that reading can be an exciting subject in… — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
With prurient absorption and only minimal risk, we can pretend to be the subject of the lead article on the front page of the… — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
The novelist in me is probably hiding behind all the stories I write, looking for ways to connect them and continue the conversation with… — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
Whether art is defined as a representation of or response to reality, it demands an intense engagement with things we haven't managed to understand… — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
The best liars lie with their eyes rather than with their words. This might put writers at a disadvantage. — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
Jim Longenbach, poet, critic, and my husband, is always passing along life-changing books for me to read. — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
In the early 1980s, I spent a year working as an assistant at the Elaine Markson Literary Agency. — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
Reviewers try to square the antics of a writer's life with the antics in the fiction. Even satirical verbal play is too often read… — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
When we really start searching for the truth in stories, we can find it everywhere, not just in sincere confessions but in the deliberate… — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
There are plenty of writers, past and present, from Shakespeare to Henry James to Lydia Davis, who test the limits of coherence and put… — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
The past is full of examples of renegade writers who were overlooked in their time not only because their work didn't fit neatly into… — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
My first two books, I was very close to my main character, stuck inside their head. And then with 'Arrogance,' I broke into many… — Joanna Scott Copy Share Image
