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I think by writing about a place with great specificity, you manage to make it universal.

Bonnie Jo Campbell

Mostly the natural landscapes work as a sounding board for my characters, so they can understand themselves, and it acts as a mirror in which we readers see ourselves.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Character Different World
I like living near my family, and near the people I understand the best. The landscape of Michigan speaks to me, and the humility and humor of the people here makes sense. It just feels right to live here, in a place where I don’t dare put on airs.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Humility Landscape People Speak
In a regular class I don’t focus on the form, but I think that focus is helpful for brainstorming and coming up with ideas quickly, especially with autobiographical material.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Class Ideas Thinking
All those are locked up tight, of course. We have a couple of pellet guns that get more use than the real guns.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

All Course Guns Locked More Tight
The truth is I tried to write for years and I wasn’t very good.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Truth Writing Years
Drugs and drinking affect every family I know, country and city, middle-class and poor.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Class Country Drinking
I’m very interested in people who are in a situation that needs a little puzzling out. The thing that gets me started on a story is a person in a tough situation.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Interested Puxxling Situation Tough
As a writer, I can live somewhat independently, occupying nooks and crannies and finding meaning there. I can even live in my mind a good portion of most days.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Findings Mind Portions
Nobody tells young writers it’s okay if you’re not very good, you’ll get better. So I just thought I’m not very good, so I should try to do every other thing besides writing. That’s how I ended up being a hitchhiker, a world traveler, and a mathematician.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Better Trying Writing
I’m pro-life, in the sense that chaos seems like life to me and order seems like death.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Chaos Life Order Pro
I’m not much interested in my own self when I write. I’m interested in what I observe out there, what’s going on around me.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Much Own Self Writing
My normal writing day involves three hours of actual writing, before noon, and the rest is just feeding the writing. There is teaching (so I can afford to write), travel to be planned and executed.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Teaching Thinking Writing
That’s where I live, a junkyard in a neighborhood of junkyards. We have three tractors from the 1940s and ’50s, several old pickup trucks, and a pile of scrap metal.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Three Tractors Truck
Since I’m living with the violence and trouble in my brain, it’s kind of a relief to write about it, to get it on paper, to put it in context, to find meaning in it.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Context Meaning Trouble Violence
The great thing about fiction is that I don’t have to settle on an answer to any troubling question, or even a solution.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Broken Decision Writing
My donkeys are Jack and Don Quixote. They’re very smart, very cautious. Much of what people consider stubbornness in donkeys is actually cautiousness.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Cautiousness People Smart

I think by writing about a place with great specificity, you manage to make it universal.

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I think by writing about a place with great specificity, you manage to make it universal.

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