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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

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
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 worked probably fewer jobs than most people, or fewer real soul-killing jobs than other people. I’ve been a typist, a typesetter, a keyliner, cappuccino-maker. I think I’ve been pretty lucky.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Jobs Real Thinking
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
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
Drugs and drinking affect every family I know, country and city, middle-class and poor.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Class Country Drinking
Time is never wasted coming to an old man bar.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Bars Man Men Old
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
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
We know that we need to explore desire in fiction – many say that the only way a story exists is that a character feels a strong desire – and nature is the place where creatures act on their desires in the most pure way imaginable.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Character Emotional Strong
I was just about to earn my Master’s along the way, but I knew something was wrong because I found myself crying all the time.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Crying Found Master Nobody Something Tell
In fact, when I finally realized I was really going to write, when I was about thirty-four, I was working on my Ph.D. in Mathematics.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Fact Four Realized Way Writing
Any of us who listen to the news or listen to stories our neighbors tell are accustomed to violence.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

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

Feet Scary Years
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bonnie Jo Campbell Quotes