Geraldine Brooks’ advice to young writers
From the introduction of The Best American Short Stories 2011, which Brooks edited.
So, my advice to young writers is, read this book. Enjoy the stories, admire the craft. Then put it in your backpack and go. As far as you can, for as long as you can afford it. Preferably someplace where you have to think in one language and buy groceries in another. Get a job there. Rent a room. Stick around. Do something. If it doesn’t work out, do something else. Whatever it is, you will be able to use it in the stories you will write later. And if that story turns out to be about grungy sex in an East Coast dorm room with an emotionally withholding semiotics major*, that’s okay. It will be a better story for the fact that you have been somewhere and carried part of it home with you in your soul.
* in reference to some of the crazy plots that she read while selecting for the anthology.
It sounds like you took his advice!
(Besides, the grungy sex in an East Coast dorm room part. I can neither confirm nor deny you followed those instructions) : )
Krystina
25 May 12 at 1:41 pm
It’s uncanny how this reflects your experience. And isn’t it interesting that Brooks started out as a journalist herself! Glad you went with your gut on this honey!
Karen
25 May 12 at 2:02 pm
I really like this quote/intro. Even if one is not a writer, I believe this applies to them as well. It’s advice about how to live, in some respects. Great stuff JW.
Duncan
2 Jun 12 at 12:14 pm