Barnard Women Share Their Passion for The Writing Life
|
AS SEEN AND HEARD AT... GREAT WRITERS AT BARNARD
Politics, Culture and Society
“I believe in writing [music] as a way to change the world. It’s a form of activism.”
—Jeanine Tesori ’83, Three-time Tony Award-winning writer/composer, Caroline, or Change, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Twelfth Night
"I think the job of the writer is to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed."
—Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal ’66, Golden Globe-winning screenwriter, Running on Empty
“We live in a world where we are so assaulted by opinions, and as writers we have to be careful of this constant assault. It’s hard to know if your opinion is really your own today.”
—Hortense Calisher ’32, National Book Award-nominated novelist |
|
“It is really important to me to write political nonfiction and journalism and films, because then…I won’t be ranting and raving in my fiction. It frees me to focus on the storytelling.”
"I went to Catholic school and grew up in a dictatorship, so the impulse not to offend anyone with my writing runs deep, and is more a cultural thing than a gender thing. I don’t feel censored while I’m writing, but often I feel regretful after.”
“When I am in Haiti I am called an American writer. When I am here in the United States, I am a Haitian writer.”
—
Edwidge Danticat ’90, National Book Award finalist, Krik? Krak!
|
|
"Ultimately, you can’t censor yourself when you write. You must tell the story you’re telling and deal with the consequences.”
—Suki Kim ’92, author, The Interpreter
“Being an immigrant to a new culture is fertile ground for writers. It was in a way like time travel for me.”
—Edwidge Danticat ’90
“As an immigrant you’re interpreting your new culture all of the time. As a writer, that is a huge advantage.”
—Suki Kim ’92
|
|
"The sense of scale has shifted [since 9/11]. Over and over and over we're being reminded that we are very small on a big planet. This is very profound. In my own work, there's a searching for a different way of looking at things that reflects this."
—Stacey D’Erasmo ‘83, novelist, New York Times notable book, Tea
"The idea that we can divide the world between us and them is now quite accepted in America — especially at the White House. That's pretty scary to me. It's a way of thinking that makes me nervous."
—Jessica Stern ’85, author and former National Security Council member under President Clinton
"Karl Rove will call up your boss and say, ‘Why are you allowing this reporter to go on working?’ For me, the challenge is to get a politician to be honestly passionate about something."
—Maria Hinijosa ’84, CNN correspondent
|
|
Photos by Diane Bondareff |
|