Laura van den Berg

I've always found the Write-What-You-Know axiom small and stifling.

— Laura van den Berg

With both novels and short stories, I think a lot in terms of character arcs, when it comes to endings.

— Laura van den Berg

“Over time, we became less sure we were something the other wanted to hold on to.”

— Laura van den Berg

To a certain degree, I think both self-narrativizing and selective memory are essential survival skills.

— Laura van den Berg

Publishing at a young age is not really an indicator of talent.

— Laura van den Berg

If we can think of a place, the physicality of a place, as a kind of 'material,' I would say the landscape…

— Laura van den Berg

I really need so much time to really make headway on a novel that requires me to disappear from the world in…

— Laura van den Berg

Like many American readers, I was first introduced to Magda Szabo's work when New York Review Books reissued the Hungarian master's profound…

— Laura van den Berg

“When you're married, our counselor had told us, happiness is like a joint banking account; it becomes full or depleted in tandem.”

— Laura van den Berg

Since childhood, I've been a fan of mysteries - 'Nancy Drew' lovers unite! - but 'Vertigo' struck me as an entirely new…

— Laura van den Berg

A sense of play is important when I'm writing, and so messing around with, say, a magic routine can feel like play,…

— Laura van den Berg

Not long after watching 'The Passenger,' I wrote the first lines of 'The Isle of Youth,' which concerns twin sisters who swap…

— Laura van den Berg

Children exist in the worlds that adults create for them, both locally and globally, and their options are, by virtue of age,…

— Laura van den Berg

To me, in general, something that's really rich in terms of identity about transit spaces is that they're so intimate. Especially thinking…

— Laura van den Berg

My students are often asking me, 'What do you think are the most important qualities for a writer?' And one thing I…

— Laura van den Berg

“Winds shake the leaves and for a moment I smell smoke. I concentrate on the scent, but it vanishes into the aroma…

— Laura van den Berg

When I first left Florida for Boston, I was so eager to shed my Floridian identity, perhaps some of my earlier surreal…

— Laura van den Berg

I think we're often guilty of gravitating towards the familiar. Even if we recognize that certain patterns are unsatisfying and destructive, there…

— Laura van den Berg

There's the public self that we present to the outer world. There's the private self, which maybe takes more time to access.…

— Laura van den Berg

I am a pretty omnivoracious reader in respect to prose style, but if the prose doesn't have its own music, if the…

— Laura van den Berg

Unlike a novel, where you expect a different kind of arc that leaves us with a somber sense of resolution, I think…

— Laura van den Berg

Like many artists, I have issues with anxiety and depression, so I try to live in a way that supports my mental…

— Laura van den Berg

“Sometimes we are called back to the things we most want to flee, perhaps because they left such a mark that we…

— Laura van den Berg

I love many realists but very strongly resist the notion that realism presents a less stylized, more authentic version of the world.

— Laura van den Berg

I think my concern is I know my voice, and I know the kinds of landscapes that interest me, so my primary…

— Laura van den Berg

“These could be her lessons. It’s right there for her, that better world. She barely has to go looking. Dana knows this,…

— Laura van den Berg

We write in a culture that favors the heft of the novel. Better still if the novel in question is large enough…

— Laura van den Berg

Children tell themselves stories, engage in self-delusion and fantasy, but those narratives are more evolving than calcified - and with that malleability…

— Laura van den Berg

Florida is a very idiosyncratic place in a lot of ways - as are many parts of our fine country, but one…

— Laura van den Berg

Here's something a little more personal: In my teens, I was having a hard time and ended up in a therapy group…

— Laura van den Berg

I think, in a lot of ways, if you really strip down some of the most compelling novels, in a lot of…

— Laura van den Berg

It puzzles me when writers say they can't read fiction when they're writing fiction because they don't want to be influenced. I'm…

— Laura van den Berg

I've had a somewhat typical experience in that many of the contemporary writers I was exposed to early on were white and…

— Laura van den Berg

The kind of dystopian books that I've always loved the most are the ones where you find yourself in a world that's…

— Laura van den Berg

For three years, I lived in a miniscule apartment on Beacon Street, less than a mile from the Boston Marathon explosions.

— Laura van den Berg

“I would whisper in the back row. Just run away. He never did, of course, and it wouldn’t have changed anything if…

— Laura van den Berg

As a reader, I appreciate a world that feels unsettled and also visceral, inhabitable, so that's a quality I try and bring…

— Laura van den Berg

If I'm really rolling with a short story, I work on it everywhere and end up with a finished draft in a…

— Laura van den Berg

I'm pretty sure that I've never confessed in an interview my weakness for McDonald's Filet-O-Fish. The cheese is fake. Who knows what…

— Laura van den Berg

In terms of specific cinematic influences, certainly I'd recommend 'Juan de los Muertos,' and I also really love this French zombie movie…

— Laura van den Berg