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You can’t beat a good sonnet, and you can write a sonnet without being married to the damned thing.

Bonnie Jo Campbell

I mostly write about the working poor. Somehow, they’re not being written about much anymore.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Needs People Writing
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
I loved writing for the school newspaper. I liked to report and interview people, but I really liked to write columns, funny columns.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

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

Class Country Drinking
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
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 was never a big reader as a kid. My imagination wasn’t captured by books very often. It was captured more often by boys and partying and riding horses.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Book Horse Party
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
The truth is I tried to write for years and I wasn’t very good.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Truth Writing Years
For ‘King Cole’s American Salvage,’ I rode around in the wrecker with a local driver and watched him deal with customers and hook up the cars.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Car Hook Kings Love Watched
I think by writing about a place with great specificity, you manage to make it universal.
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL

Specificity Thinking Writing
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 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 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 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

You can’t beat a good sonnet, and you can write a sonnet without being married to the damned thing.

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You can’t beat a good sonnet, and you can write a sonnet without being married to the damned thing.

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Popular Authors

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