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I realized that I was writing about folks with lots of skills, especially fix-it skills and survival skills, who were nonetheless not doing well in the new-millennium America.

Bonnie Jo Campbell

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
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
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 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
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
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 thought that you had to learn to write by yourself and if you couldn’t do it, then you were out of luck.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Luck Thought 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
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
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
I realized that I was writing about folks with lots of skills, especially fix-it skills and survival skills, who were nonetheless not doing well in the new-millennium America.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Country People Realized Skills Writing
Being five-foot-ten at fourteen years old was a little bit scary.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

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

Class Country Drinking
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
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 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
Where I live you’re not supposed to shoot a firearm within a quarter mile of a dwelling.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Dwelling Miles Quarters
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Men didn’t understand that you couldn’t let yourself be consumed with passion when there were so many people needing your attention, when there was so much work to do.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Consume Men Passion Sleep Work

I realized that I was writing about folks with lots of skills, especially fix-it skills and survival skills, who were nonetheless not doing well in the new-millennium America.

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I realized that I was writing about folks with lots of skills, especially fix-it skills and survival skills, who were nonetheless not doing well in the new-millennium America.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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