As I experienced life on the island, without electricity, plumbing or telephone, I thought it was important to show that people can live as I did without dying or falling apart. I wanted people to understand that we don't need everything that our culture tells us we have to have to be satisfied.

Alix Kates Shulman

Categorized in : Fall People Islands

Within walking distance of any spot on Earth there's probably more than enough mystery to investigate in a lifetime.

Alix Kates Shulman

distance earth life

Sexism goes so deep that at first it's hard to see; you think it's just reality.

Alix Kates Shulman

reality firsts thinking

There is still nothing like equality for women in jobs, in family. There's just an awareness that inequality is not acceptable.

Alix Kates Shulman

inequality awareness jobs

Fiction is ideally suited to re-creating the important emotional aspects of history.

Alix Kates Shulman

creating emotional important

My mirror image always had to be interpreted. And for that I sought my reflection in someone else's eyes.

Alix Kates Shulman

mirrors eye reflection

Everything is connected. There is no such thing as an island, especially in our world, global village, the whole thing. Pollution from way across the ocean circulates in the air.

Alix Kates Shulman

our-world ocean islands

Usually, ordinary histories don't get the emotional feel of a period. That's what a novel can do.

Alix Kates Shulman

emotional periods ordinary

When farming became a corporate venture, and the distribution of food became corporate, the variety of foods that were considered good diminished greatly. I know that there's a lot of misconception about this, that people think we have more food variety than ever before, but, in fact, if you read any of the studies, you'll find we have fewer foods than before.

Alix Kates Shulman

venture people thinking

Many people spend the ends of their lives alone, and probably a lot of years in the middle of their lives, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to experience the rewards of solitude.

Alix Kates Shulman

opportunity people years

In my books, my idea is always to explore social context and social forces.

Alix Kates Shulman

social book ideas

People often say to me now, "Your work changed my life." I'm sure that's an exaggeration, but they say it had a big effect on them and enabled them to change. I'm not sure I believe that a book will cause someone to change.

Alix Kates Shulman

believe book people

Being alone for a woman is probably much more scary than for a man. I'm all for getting over our fears by facing them head-on.

Alix Kates Shulman

scary men

Our society has very much limited our choices, even regarding the food we think acceptable.

Alix Kates Shulman

our-society choices thinking

The world is abundant with food for us, and with everything we need, if only we just open our eyes. There's so much food that gets thrown out or never harvested.

Alix Kates Shulman

eye world needs

I am not a psychological novelist, and I try very hard not to allow the reader to see the plight or circumstances of the characters as individual psychological plights. That's my preference; still, a lot of people do read my novels as psychological studies, and they're right to read them that way too, if that's what they mean to them.

Alix Kates Shulman

character mean people

When I became a feminist, when the movement started in the late sixties, I started writing because I had something urgent to say. My first novel, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen, is the product of that urgency.

Alix Kates Shulman

prom-queen queens writing

One important part of historical recording is to get people of another generation to understand the feelings, the passion that went into social transformation. That's why oral history is so valuable.

Alix Kates Shulman

passion feelings people

There is a lot of gender segregation. You still have many poor women who work in women-only jobs. In the family, in most cases, only women have the double job of working outside the home and taking care of the family.

Alix Kates Shulman

work-out home jobs

I see old age not as something to hide from or dread (though there is much to oppose in the usual treatment of the old) but rather as something to embrace as the natural and inevitable end.

Alix Kates Shulman

usual age natural

I don't really think myself that sex work is necessarily more demeaning than other kinds of demeaning work.

Alix Kates Shulman

kind sex thinking