When I was writing my first novel, 'Where the Line Bleeds,' which had young black men as its main characters, I was very invested in telling the story and also very worried about the effects the story would have.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the author's deep concern for the representation of her characters and the impact of storytelling.
Jesmyn Ward emphasizes the dual responsibility of a writer to be both passionate about storytelling and mindful of the implications that their narratives can have on readers and society. In her experience writing 'Where the Line Bleeds,' she recognizes the significance of portraying the lives of young black men, embodying feelings of both investment in their stories and anxiety regarding the broader effects these representations might create.
In practice
During a panel discussion on literature, I referenced Jesmyn Ward's quote to highlight the role of writers in shaping societal narratives.
I always understood my ancestry, like that of so many others in the Gulf Coast, to be a tangle of African slaves, free men of color, French and Spanish immigrants, British colonists, Native Americans - but in what proportion, and what might that proportion tell me about who I thought I was?
In the South, there is more overt racism. It's more willfully ignorant and brazen. But it's not as if by moving I'm going to be able to escape institutionalized racism. It's not as though my life won't be twisted and impacted by racism anymore. It will.
The ugly heart of the South still beats with this idea that one group of people is worth less.
Katrina silenced me for two years. I wrote a 12-page essay on my experience in Katrina, and that's it. I didn't write anything for, like, two, two and a half years after Katrina hit because it was so traumatic.
Hip-hop, which is my generation's blues, is important to the characters that I write about. They use hip-hop to understand the world through language.
With all the main characters that I write, it's always very important to me that they have good and bad aspects of their personality. It's important to me that they're complicated and that they're human.
What was any art but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.
That's what you're looking for as a writer when you're working. You're looking for your own freedom. To lose your inhibition to delve deep into your memory and experiences and life and then to find the prose that will persuade the reader.
Occasionally, in times of worry, I've longed to be stylish, but on second thought I say no-just let me be myself-and express rough, yet true things with rough workmanship.
If you're performing music that is not who you are or where you're at, it is painful. It's painful for the performer and for the audience.
The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.
Theoretically, the actor ought to be more sound in mind and body than other people, since he learns to understand the psychological problems of human beings when putting his own passions, his loves, fears, and rages to work in the service of the characters he plays. He will learn to face himself, to hide nothing from himself- and to do so takes AN INSATIABLE CURIOSITY ABOUT THE HUMAN CONDITION
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.