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Any of us who listen to the news or listen to stories our neighbors tell are accustomed to violence.

Bonnie Jo Campbell

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
So maybe nature also works as a metaphor for whatever emotional troubles my characters have to negotiate. I’m interested in my characters as survivors, and maybe that works best when the old-fashioned notion of humans surviving in wilderness is not too far away.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Best Character Emotional Fashioned Interested Old Work
I have a second-degree black belt in Okinawan kobudo weapons training.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Black Degrees Training
I think by writing about a place with great specificity, you manage to make it universal.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Specificity Thinking Writing
Being five-foot-ten at fourteen years old was a little bit scary.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Feet Scary Years
It occurred to Susan that men were always waiting for something cataclysmic-love or war or a giant asteroid.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Character Fighting War
You can’t beat a good sonnet, and you can write a sonnet without being married to the damned thing.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Beats Married Writing
That was a mistake, I guess, going out to California. They have these things called guidance counselors in high school. They drink a lot of herbal tea.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

California Mistake School
We all screw up, but the women I write about don’t have back-up plans or money in the back or resources to fix what they have broken.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Broken Money Plan Resources Screw
I do different work, teaching and running around visiting universities and bookstores, and that prevents me from writing. But it’s nice to be wanted as a writer.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Nice Running Teaching
I’ve worked behind counters serving food, and I’ve lived on the circus train, and I’ve led bicycle tours in Eastern Europe and the Balkans and Russia. I’ve been a key liner for a newspaper, I’ve done typesetting. Oh, all sorts of things.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Country Keys People Worked
I hope that my stories serve as explorations and help show readers how and why real-life women don’t always make the “correct” decisions in the face of economic and sexual troubles.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Decision Economics Exploration Sexual Trouble
A mathematical proof is beautiful, but when you’re finished, it’s really only about one thing. A story can be about many things.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Beautiful Proof Stories
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
That’s why I have to be a fiction writer, because I can’t remember what just happened or where I went last week or what movie I just watched with my husband. I’m better off just making things up.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Fiction Husband Lasts
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

Any of us who listen to the news or listen to stories our neighbors tell are accustomed to violence.

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Any of us who listen to the news or listen to stories our neighbors tell are accustomed to violence.

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Popular Authors

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