Barnard Women Share Their Passion for The Writing Life
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AS SEEN AND HEARD AT... GREAT WRITERS AT BARNARD
Everything I Need to Know I Learned at Barnard
“I am grateful to Barnard for so much! My mother sent me for typing and shorthand classes when I was 12, and my greatest fear was that I would end up taking dictation for the rest of my life. Graduating from Barnard freed me from that fate, and my paycheck from teaching here now gives me the freedom to write what I want.”
—Mary Gordon ’71, Chair, English Department and Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of Writing |
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“The feeling that you can do anything probably came to me at Barnard. Everything flowed from that basic confidence I gained here."
—Hortense Calisher ’32, novelist, past president American P.E.N. and American Academy of Arts and Letters
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“My professor Mary Gordon took me into her office, closed the door, and said ‘I hope you have a good working class work ethic.’ She taught me that it was more about logging the time writing than about luck, and that was a really important thing for me to hear – from a writing teacher, let alone a bestselling author.”
—Eliza Minot ’91, author, The Tiny One, a New York Times notable book in 1999 |
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“I wanted to go to Barnard but my mom wanted me to go to NYU. She won, and I went to NYU, where my roommate ended up being a call girl. After that, Dad intervened and I got to go to Barnard.”
—Julia Jordan ’89, playwright who will teach at Barnard in Spring 2006
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"The thing that helped me the most at Barnard was the character of the faculty. If I tried to fake it, someone would notice and point it out."
—Suzanne Vega '81, Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter
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"Barnard taught me to be politically active, open to spirituality, and relentless about my intellectual curiosity."
—Brooke Berman '88-89, author of numerous plays, shorts, and works of fiction
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Photos by Diane Bondareff |
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