Literary Birthday – 18 October – Terry McMillan

Happy Birthday, Terry McMillan, born 18 October 1951.

Seven Quotes

1. My primary interest is to get parents to read to their kids. That’s about the most you can do, I think.
2. I try to create characters that I am fascinated by on some level or intrigued by or can’t stand.
3. Let me put it this way: when I read, I learned the world was not as small as my house. And that everybody in my home town was not representative of the way people in the world were raised. And that was what saved me.
4. I like to think of what happens to characters in good novels and stories as knots—things keep knotting up. And by the end of the story—readers see an unknotting of sorts. Not what you expect, not the easy answers you get on TV, not wash and wear philosophies, but a reproduction of believable, emotional experiences.
5. I’m more interested in interpersonal relationships – between lovers, families, siblings. That’s why I write about how we treat each other.
6. There is a price for popularity. Critics look for your weaknesses, your flaws, anything that makes the work seem like a fluke and not seem worthy of all the attention it’s getting.
7. Few writers are willing to admit writing is autobiographical.

Terry McMillan is an American author. She is best-known for Waiting to Exhale, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and Disappearing Acts which were all adapted for film.

Read our post: Terry McMillan’s Advice to Aspiring Writers

Source for Image

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Terry_McMillan_at_the_2008_Brooklyn_Book_Festival.jpg

David Shankbone, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

by Amanda Patterson

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