“Every story I've written was written because I had to write it. Writing stories is like breathing for me; it is my life.”

— Ray Bradbury

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Ray Bradbury 401

American writer 1920–2012

Steve Alten (1959) American writer

Interview with New HWA Member Steve Alten http://horror.org/interview-with-new-hwa-member-steve-alten-by-ron-breznay/ (December 7, 2011)

“My Zen master, because I’ve studied Zen for a long time, told me that every one (and all the stories weren’t written then) of the Mary Poppins stories is in essence a Zen story.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

The Paris Review interview (1982)
Context: My Zen master, because I’ve studied Zen for a long time, told me that every one (and all the stories weren’t written then) of the Mary Poppins stories is in essence a Zen story. And someone else, who is a bit of a Don Juan, told me that every one of the stories is a moment of tremendous sexual passion, because it begins with such tension and then it is reconciled and resolved in a way that is gloriously sensual. … A great friend of mine at the beginning of our friendship (he was himself a poet) said to me very defiantly, “I have to tell you that I loathe children’s books.” And I said to him, “Well, won’t you just read this just for my sake?” And he said grumpily, “Oh, very well, send it to me.” I did, and I got a letter back saying: “Why didn’t you tell me? Mary Poppins with her cool green core of sex has me enthralled forever.”

“The written word is holy…When we write our stories, it helps us bring understanding.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

On the importance of gaining knowledge in “Author Victor Villaseñor talks 'Crazy Loco'” https://www.lmtonline.com/que_pasa/article/Author-Victor-Villase-or-talks-Crazy-Loco-10268363.php in LMT Online (2008 Dec 11)

“I had gone thoroughly through some of the all-fiction magazines and I made up my mind that if people were paid for writing such rot as I read I could write stories just as rotten. Although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines.
I knew nothing about the technique of story writing, and now, after eighteen years of writing, I still know nothing about the technique, although with the publication of my new novel, Tarzan and the Lost Empire, there are 31 books on my list. I had never met an editor, or an author or a publisher. l had no idea of how to submit a story or what I could expect in payment. Had I known anything about it at all I would never have thought of submitting half a novel; but that is what I did.
Thomas Newell Metcalf, who was then editor of The All-Story magazine, published by Munsey, wrote me that he liked the first half of a story I had sent him, and if the second half was as good he thought he might use it. Had he not given me this encouragement, I would never have finished the story, and my writing career would have been at an end, since l was not writing because of any urge to write, nor for any particular love of writing. l was writing because I had a wife and two babies, a combination which does not work well without money.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) American writer

How I Wrote the Tarzan Books (1929)

“I have people constantly come up to me telling me that I have written their life. When I wrote the story I thought it was a pretty good story but I had no idea that many people felt like that.”

Blackie Lawless (1956) musician, songwriter and actor

Music America Interview

“My schoolmates could not understand why anyone would want to write a story; and, above all, they could not understand why I had called it The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre. The mood out of which a story was written was the most alien thing conceivable to them.”

Richard Wright book Black Boy

Black Boy (1945)

“A memoir for me means a person’s life story; if I was going to write my actual life story, I would condense this entire marriage into a footnote.”

Meena Kandasamy (1984) Indian poet

On her book When I Hit You in “Meena Kandasamy: ‘If I was going to write my life story, I would condense that marriage to a footnote’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/25/meena-kandasamy-interview-exquisite-cadavers in The Guardian (2019 Nov 25)

“I ask myself: is every story that has ever been written in this world, a story of suffering and affliction?”

Clarice Lispector book The Hour of the Star

Source: The Hour of the Star

“Oral tradition is really how Chicano literature came to be. I was not exposed to the written word, but I had the greatest teacher. I always tell people that my mother was my inspiration because she was the best chismosa, and she had the best stories. And if anyone taught me about drama, it was my mother because she knew how to tell a story. And my grandfather also told stories. One of the reasons why I waned to be a writer was because I was fascinated by stories of La Llorona, supernatural stories and things like that and I love hearing chisme (gossip)…”

Josefina Lopez (1969) American playwright

On her earliest influences in “JOSEFINA LÓPEZ – IN HER OWN WORDS” http://latinopia.com/latino-theater/josefina-lopez/ in Latinopia (2010 Mar 6)

“I do not like to write - I like to have written.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

“Every story I've written was written because I had to write it. Writing stories is like breathing for me; it is my life.”

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Ray Bradbury 401

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