I always want readers to lose themselves completely in a story and feel something, whatever the book invites them to feel. That experience is the best takeaway any book can offer.

Julie Berry

Categorized in : Book Want Stories

The people you save won't celebrate you. They'll gather the wood and cheer while you burn.

woods cheer people

Did we risk our lives to defend a just society, where guilt must be proven and not assumed? Or are we no better than the oppressive kings from whom our fathers fled?

risk kings father

Like a soldier back from battle you fill my vision. You're a flood, a baptism I'd forgotten, and the force of you leaves me breathless.

baptism soldier love

The fuzzy boundary lines between different readership ages have always puzzled me, so these days I just write what comes, and assume I can fix the mess later with an editor's help.

editors age writing

And what rules of economy dictate that a boy without a foot is more whole than a girl without a tongue?

girl feet boys

I nod. Young love is not always forever. I know.

young-love forever love-is

It's a cold world when no one will touch you.

cold-world cold world

I have to trust that if a story is strong, it can find its readership, and good editors can steer me well.

editors strong stories

A miracle that can never be: your face, your hands, pledged to me.

miracle faces hands

There is a curious comfort in letting go. After the agony, letting go brings numbness, and after the numbness, clarity. As if I can see the world for the first time, and my place in it, independent of you, a whole vista of what may be. Even if it is not grand or inspiring, it is real and solid, unlike the fantasy I've built around you. I will do this.

independent real letting-go

I don't believe in miracles, but if the need is great, a girl might make her own miracle.

miracle girl believe