Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote, “The dead don’t go anywhere. They’re all here. Each man is a cemetery. An actual cemetery, in which lie all our grandmothers and grandfathers, the father and mother, the wife, the child. Everyone is here all the time.” As much as 40 WEEKS is about new life, about survival and hope and most of all love, it also carries within it all the dead I come from and passes them down onto my children.
Read MoreI’ve learned not to anticipate too much as I’m writing. The dream is for every character to carry their own secrets, their own complexities. If those complexities are outward-facing, things we can all see, that presents itself in one way to a narrator. If they’re hiding what’s nuanced or conflicting in themselves, that presents itself quite differently.
Read MoreSecrets, especially family secrets, can act as a conduit for compassion, I think. Because I love you—the logic goes—I am withholding this painful or potentially painful truth. Of course, friction materializes when the impulse to conceal is confronted by a need for knowledge, or an impulse to connect, and the initial altruistic intent fails to translate.
Read MoreChildren have a unique relationship with the body and its processes. There is rarely ever shame or disgust. A child engages their body with curiosity until they reach a threshold that calls for propriety, which often happens when they learn shame. I like to call attention to the ways the body can fail, and how, even when things don’t work the way we want, our bodies are still incredible and worthy of love.
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