Literary Birthday – 23 September – Jennie Shortridge

Happy Birthday, Jennie Shortridge, born 23 September 1959.

Quotes

I have always written, even when not being paid to, trying to examine the universal story through a personal lens. I write to put another voice, another viewpoint, out into a world where too many of the voices I hear aren’t telling my story, or my family’s and friends’ stories.
Reading was my salvation as a kid, and now, writing is.
I write with an agenda, to expose and examine things that I think are worth thinking and talking about. I write because, truly, I love every minute of it and can’t imagine doing anything else.
I believe we’re innate storytellers, with story structure passed down through the ages and present now in much the same way it always has been. I write to that innate sense, that rhythm of rising tension and relief. I study structure a lot, but in the end, when I write, I just follow how the story wants to be told. The content dictates the structure.
Learn your craft. Then practise, practise, practise. Marketing? Think about it in five years.

Jennie Shortridge is an American best-selling novelist and off-and-on musician. She is the author of Love Water Memory, When She Flew, Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe, Eating Heaven, and Riding With the Queen.