Literary Birthday – 26 September – Alison Espach

Happy Birthday, Alison Espach, born on 26 September 1984.

Alison Espach Quotes

1. For me, the first part of writing a novel always has to happen naturally or else I probably wouldn’t do it. A novel takes years, however, and that means you have almost every possible feeling while finishing it. Sometimes I lose the connection to the book for whatever reason, and then I have to cultivate the connection again.
2. When I don’t have to teach, I wake up and start working on it right away, before the day gets away from me. That seems to be important. I always have coffee at my side. My cat is always sitting next to me, judging me. And if I really like what I’m working on, I will work on it almost obsessively until the main arc of the story has been filled out.
3. Every time I pitch a novel, I realise I don’t quite have my novel figured out yet because I can’t fully describe it the way I want. When that happens, I go back into the manuscript and usually start working on it again for months. We think of pitching as something that should happen once we’re all done, but if you do it really early in the process, I find it can be an amazing outlining tool that helps me figure out the book I actually want to write.
4. Usually some kind of scenario gets stuck in my head and I run with it. I’m honestly not sure where that comes from, other than a life spent observing others around me and making note of moments that interest me the most.
5. I write on a computer for the most part. I don’t really outline in the start, not in a typical sense, though at some point during the novel, I do have to sit down and write an outline to figure out what story I’m telling. I usually
6. I have a voice or an idea that gives me momentum and once that momentum runs out, I need to get organised.
7. I would say when I first started writing, I was a very dialogue heavy writer. It comes to me most naturally. As I got older, I had to really learn how to write setting. I had to deliberately learn certain elements of craft.
8. I love the stranger’s perspective on things. I love when the character is watching something from afar. The stranger is able to see something that characters who are closer to the action miss.
9. That is something that I really love about fiction when fiction writers take someone who seems like a stereotype and then increasingly complicate that stereotype.

Source for quotes 1-3: Reading, Writing, And Me and 4-6: Ocean State Stories and 7-9: 26.org.uk

Alison Espach is a New York Times bestselling American author of literary fiction. Her novels include The Adults, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance, and The Wedding People. Espach’s fiction combines dark humour, witty dialogue, and emotionally complex characters. Her novels explore grief, loneliness, friendship, family, love, and the unexpected ways people’s lives intersect. She often finds humour in difficult situations while examining the emotional lives of ordinary people. Espach has written for McSweeney’s, Vogue, Outside, LitHub, Joyland, and other publications. She received her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis and teaches creative writing at Providence College in Rhode Island. Follow her on Instagram.

Source for photograph: Author’s Website

by Amanda Patterson
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