I hope people who read my books feel empathy for us and really see us as complicated people. — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I wanted to write about the experiences of the poor and the black and the rural people of the South. — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
That's why I write fiction, because I want to write these stories that people will read and find universal. — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
The ugly heart of the South still beats with this idea that one group of people is worth less. — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
People are not afraid to be activists, to be vocal. And I think back to my years in college, and that wasn't… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I do think that people will claim a certain fatigue about talking about race. But I think that even though they do,… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
On one hand, I can say, you know, I had many family members - I had many people in my extended family… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
Because everyone grows up together in my small hometown, everyone knows everyone else. And there are such large extended families that a… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
If I'm honest about the people that I love, then I need my characters to live through the same things that the… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
My people are still poor. They're still working class. All of the characters that I write about are inspired by the community… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
People give the South a bad rap. It's often stereotyped as backwards and close-minded and dogmatic, and all of those things have… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I thought about all those people whose suffering had been erased, and I thought, 'Why can't they speak? Why can't I undo… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I feel like the kind of people I write about are the kind of people I grew up with, the families that… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
There are things about the South - the politics, the classism, the racism - that I hate, and I want to be… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
My understanding of voodoo is that it was important to the people who practiced it because it helped them survive. There are… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
Most people just aren't clear-eyed about the rural South. We think that the urban centers are the problem, and the rural areas… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I hope that if the people who read my work encounter people in the real world who are like the characters that… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
Speaking specifically about the memoir, I know that's a criticism that people can have about my work. When I look at the… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
My family has been poor and working-class for generations. And we live - I live in this really small community in Southern… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
Some people think that Southern hip-hop doesn't have any depth. They think it's just noise, all about people having a good time… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
Even though I read voraciously as a child, I never saw myself in books. Without narratives to expand my ideas of who… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
Black people in the US are told all the time, from all aspects, that they're nothing, that they're less than. And of… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I came to the realization that I had failed in some respects because I had been more of a benevolent narrator than… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
In my family and in my community, I see people struggling with drug addiction, with poverty and the effects of generational poverty;… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I wanted to write about voodoo tradition that I feel has been very important to survival of black people here: people of… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
Living in the rural South, you sometimes feel trapped, like you don't have any options. It grinds people down, and of course… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I was pleasantly surprised with 'Salvage.' I went to Australia and New Zealand for the novel and met a lot of people… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I think people make certain assumptions about what they're interested in reading or what others would be interested in reading, and when… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I think that we need to be more aware of how we are all interconnected, and how we actually need to invest… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
When I was writing the memoir, every page was a battle with myself because I knew I had to tell the truth.… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
Throughout my career, when I have been rejected, there was sometimes subtext, and it was this: People will not read your work… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I don't really base any of my characters on specific people that I know, although my characters are informed by the kind… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I couldn't run from that desire to tell stories, that desire to tell stories about us, and about the people I loved. — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
People ask me about staying here. I think they assume that I wouldn't want to come back to a place like Mississippi,… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I consider myself a progressive, so my answer would be that we need to be progressive. For some reason the people in… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I wanted to write about voodoo tradition that I feel has been very important to survival of black people here: people of the African… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I think that voodoo as a spiritual tradition has been demonized for so long in popular culture. I wanted to write against that and… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
There's so much I love about home, but then there's a lot that I can acknowledge that I dislike about home. And acknowledging that… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
“The dream of her was the glow of a spent fire on a cold night: warm and welcoming.” — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
The first writer that I think of immediately that I studied with at Michigan is Peter Ho Davies. He was really important to me,… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I feel like so much of what happened in the Delta over the decades since slavery was abolished seems much closer in the Delta,… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
“Vines catch my arms, my head; we tear through until we break out into the clearing before the fence, the field, the barn, the… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
“Before all the little mean things she told me gathered and gathered and lodged like grit in a skinned knee.” — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
People give the South a bad rap. It's often stereotyped as backwards and close-minded and dogmatic, and all of those things have been true.… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
By the time I wrote my memoir, 'Men We Reaped,' I had been running from writing it for a long time. When the events… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
When I was a teenager, I was the only black girl at a small, private Episcopal school, where my tuition was paid by the… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
She was the murderous mother who cut us to the bone but left us alive, left us naked and bewildered as wrinkled newborn babies,… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
