It's always the case for writers that when there are limitations, you have the opportunity for your creativity really to blossom and to become deeper and fuller and to move in directions that you wouldn't have discovered on your own.

Emily Barton

Categorized in : Moving Opportunity Creativity

I think that we're all always just working on finding how that balance functions for us, given today's circumstances.

balance today thinking

I was working on the book, but in a very subterranean kind of a fashion. And I think that giving yourself permission to respect that, without being lazy and not doing work when you could be doing work and just don't feel like it - that's a different balance that can be complicated to strike.

fashion book thinking

It's very difficult, I think for most writers, to carve out the time and the kind of imaginative space to do the writing that you really want to do and also to be an active, engaged, compassionate, giving human being in the world, to the people around you and to your broader community.

space writing thinking

I think that whether you've just begun writing or whether you've been writing for fifty years - I mean, I'm excited to get there and tell you about it when I do - I think that there's always the challenge of believing in yourself enough to get the work done and not being so taken with yourself that you're unwilling to continue to work on the work.

taken writing believe

We [me and husband ] had been learning about the Khazars, and I had read Michael Chabon's novel [Gentlemen of the Road] the year before, so all these things are kind of roiling around in my brain, and then I slipped on the ice and I broke my wrist, and it had to be surgically repaired.

ice husband years

As a Jewish thinker, I don't think of myself in relationship to t... by Emily Barton

As a Jewish thinker, I don't think of myself in relationship to the dominant culture's religion.

thinker culture thinking

I may be the person who put "dieselpunk" into the conversation. I have always been a reader who reads in a really broad way. I read genre writers and I read literary fiction and I read books by dead people.

book people fiction

A good book is a good book, and there are a lot of different ways to approach writing or reading one.

reading writing book

Trying to talk through and figure out new answers really helps me figure out more about what I'm doing - and what we're all doing.

answers helping trying

I tend to think of writing as a more collaborative project than I... by Emily Barton

I tend to think of writing as a more collaborative project than I think some people do.

writing people thinking

I think about the collaboration between writers and readers, but I also think about the collaboration between all the writers in a generation or in a country or across time contributing to this massive project of documenting and reimagining our world.

our-world country thinking

Teaching is enormously satisfying because I'm constantly learning more. Just constantly being exposed to new voices and new life experiences and new worldviews and new structural dilemmas and new characters - it's really exciting for me.

voice teaching character

As I continue to teach, I have more to offer my students, and as I continue to teach, I have more to learn from my students. I do know some writers who feel very drained when they leave the classroom, and for me this would be a sign that maybe it's time to take a break or refocus because I always leave the classroom even more excited than I was when I walked in.

classroom students would-be

Tom, my husband, who converted to Judaism when we got married, and as a consequence, we were learning about historical conversions to Judaism. Really, every time it pops up, it's very strange.

strange husband historical