Literary Birthday – 2 December – Elizabeth Berg
Happy Birthday, Elizabeth Berg, born on 2 December 1948.
Elizabeth Berg Quotes
- I never stop writing unless my life circumstances force me to. It has nothing to do with publication. It has to do with the fact that I must do it, and that I love doing it.
- I love writing endings. Sometimes I’ll know the last line or the last scene of a novel long before I’m finished with it. I’ve written the last page of the novel I’m working on right now even though I’m still a good fifty pages from the end. I already know what I’m moving toward.
- I don’t think about anyone when I write a book. I can’t. It would freeze me up. I write for myself.
- Trust the process. Writers are born, I think, not taught. You can hone your technique, but what makes a writer is a certain sensibility. You simply have it and it doesn’t go away.
- I think a lot about what I’m going to do before I do it. I think in the shower and when I’m walking. There is a point when a book begins writing itself. It’s almost as though I see a scene and then write what I saw. I hear lines of dialogue. That’s when I know it’s okay–when it’s writing itself. It’s like a flower opening. It opens by itself. It’s unexpected and, oftentimes, surprising.
Elizabeth Berg is a bestselling American author of women’s fiction. Her many novels, include We Are All Welcome Here, The Year of Pleasures, and Open House, which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection in 2000. She writes character‑focused stories about family life and personal change, and her work has been recognized by the American Library Association. She has also written a book on writing: Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True. In 2020, Berg published I’ll Be Seeing You: A Memoir, about caring for her aging parents. Her latest book is Life: A Love Story. Click here for a full list of her books.
Source for Image: Author’s website
by Amanda Patterson
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