I wanted to write a voice that for me, as a reader, had been missing from the chorus: the voice of an angry woman.
— Claire Messud
The more accurately one can illuminate a particular human experience, the better the work of art.
Yes, writing is essential to me. It's my way of living in the world.
If I had to summarize, most broadly, my concerns as a writer, I'd say the question 'How then must we live?' is at the heart of it, for me.
The effort to create a work of art that is true and potentially lasting, that is the very best work of art you can create at that point in your life - a book that may only reach or move a few people but will seem to those people somehow transformative. That's the ideal; that's always the motivation.
I'm not a writing group member, not a joiner in that way. I don't seek a wide swath of feedback.
As any of us approaches middle age, we inevitably come up against our limitations: the realization that certain dearly-held fantasies may not be realized; that circumstances have thwarted us; that even with intention and will we may not be able to set our ship back on the course we'd planned.
I believe that, in an ideal world, writers would feel free to write what matters to them without having to consider success, failure, the market, etc.
