“Ask me if writing can be taught, and I say yes. But I can’t teach you how to have something to say.”
–Ann Patchett
Source: @Quotes4Writers
Quotation of the Week for Writers: Ann Patchett
2 Responses »
Leave a Response
About Erika Dreifus
Erika Dreifus is the author of Quiet Americans: Stories (Last Light Studio), which is an ALA Sophie Brody Medal Honor Title for outstanding Jewish literature. Quiet Americans was also named a Notable Book (The Jewish Journal) and a Top Small-Press Book (Shelf Unbound). Erika is a contributing editor for Fiction Writers Review and an advisory board member for J Journal: New Writing on Justice, and she wrote the section on “Choosing a Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing” for the second edition of Tom Kealey’s Creative Writing MFA Handbook (Continuum, 2008). Erika is also the editor/publisher of The Practicing Writer, a free (and popular) e-newsletter featuring advice, opportunities, and resources on the craft and business of writing for fictionists, poets, and writers of creative nonfiction.
Follow Erika
Practicing Writing RSS FeedSubscribe to Practicing Writing via email
- My Machberet RSS Feed
Subscribe to My Machberet via email
Recent Tweets
- Suggestions to help w/a #poetry chapbook manuscript? j.mp/1bVdOip 13 hours ago
- Just announced: winner of the J Journal giveaway. Thanks to everyone who entered! #litmags erikadreifus.com/2013/06/wednes… 13 hours ago
- “I’m never happier than when a student brings out a book.”–Colum McCann. #MFA #teaching #writing thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/… 1 day ago
- Coming soon from @cunytv: “Irish #Writers in America.” Sample episode: “Breslin on Breslin.” cuny.tv/show/cunytv/PR… 1 day ago
- This evening’s literary fix. http://t.co/4pJiB12j8K 2 days ago
Quiet Americans - Stories by Erika Dreifus
A high-ranking Nazi’s wife and a Jewish doctor in prewar Berlin. A Jewish immigrant soldier and the German POWs he is assigned to supervise. A refugee returning to Europe for the first time just as terrorists massacre Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. A son of survivors and the family secrets modern technology may reveal. These are some of the characters and conflicts that emerge in Quiet Americans, in stories that reframe familiar questions about what is right and wrong, remembered and repressed, resolved and unending. Portions of the proceeds from sales of Quiet Americans are being donated to The Blue Card. Quiet Americans has been named a 2012 Sophie Brody Medal Honor Title (American Library Association) and recognized as a “Notable Book” (The Jewish Journal) and “Top Book” (Shelf Unbound).
Love this quote, Erika. Makes me think of someone I met recently. She asked me what I do: “I said I’m a writer.” She asked me what I write. I told her that it was a mix of journalism, essay, and a memoir-in-progress. She said, “Oh, I’ve always wanted to write a book. I just don’t know what I would write about.”
Oddly enough, Linda, I kind of get exactly what that woman meant!