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
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
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
I dabbled in writing, wrote really bad poetry in high school. I also took a few writing classes when I was an… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I want each character to be as unique as possible. I want them to reflect something of who they are in the… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I worked with several writers at the University of Michigan: Nicholas Delbanco, Peter Ho Davies, Eileen Pollack, Laura Kasischke, and Thomas Lynch,… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
If I could chat with anyone, it would be Claire Messud, because I think she could tell me how to get better… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I try to treat writing as part of my daily routine: I write for at least two hours, five days per week.… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I'm a failed poet. Reading poetry helps me to see the world differently, and I try to infuse my prose with figurative… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I think that the first book that made me think that I could try to be a writer - or that made… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
Through the process of specifically writing this memoir, there was so much reckoning that I had to do. It was very difficult.… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
When I decided to write about my brother and friends, I was attempting to answer the question why. Why did they all… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
The reason that I like to use classical myths as models is because African American writers and African American stories are usually… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I feel a lot of pressure when I'm writing because I know, you know, if they looked at a synopsis of the… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
It took me a long time to write again because Katrina destroyed the home I loved, and that robbed me of hope. — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
As an artist, I feel a certain responsibility to write about difficult subject matter. — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I felt like if I didn't write about what happened to the young men here in the South of America, the same… — 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
I could stifle my voice, or strip it. I know that I could, because we can do anything we put our minds… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I think that being a parent has expanded my writing, expanded my understanding of my characters, and has added a depth and… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
After I finished my first draft of 'Salvage the Bones,' I felt that I wasn't political enough. I had to be more… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
It infuriates me that the work of white American writers can be universal and lay claim to classic texts, while black and… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
I'm writing about the things I see all around me. Growing up in Mississippi, I've seen how these backward ideas about class… — Jesmyn Ward Copy Share Image
It's very hard to deal with true subject matter, especially when you're writing about such weighty issues. — 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
