Literary Birthday – 25 April – Emma Straub

Happy Birthday, Emma Straub, born on 25 April 1979.

Emma Straub Quotes

1. I see my ultimate subject as the characters’ relationships with one another and their relationship to themselves. So I love to write about families. I feel like you could write about a family forever and never run out of conflict or love or hurt feelings. (Writer Mag)
2. I write little character studies and plot outlines, and I pretend I know all that I need to. Then I start writing and things always change. My understanding of characters always deepens, if not changes entirely. It depends on what they do and their reactions and conversations I uncover as I’m writing. (Writer Mag)
3. When I was in my twenties, I’d write 25 pages a week. I was a speed machine. Now I try to write 10 pages a week, but that doesn’t always happen. (Writer Mag)
4. I’m a firm believer in finishing it before revising…If you’re obsessed with perfection, you’re never going to finish. (Writer Mag)
5. I don’t think you really get to choose the way your voice is on a page. (Full-Stop)
6. What’s supposed to happen in a short story? Is a comet supposed to hit? No! For me, the short stories I really love — not the only stories I love, but the stories I love best — are really, really quiet. (Full-Stop)
7. Nowadays, part of the reality of being a writer is that you’re going to have other jobs. That’s just true — unless you’re J.K. Rowling, you’re going to have to supplement your income. But I have other jobs; I work at the bookstore. (Full-Stop)
8. When I graduated, I decided to write a novel. I gave myself an outline and wrote this completely bananas book that was like Wuthering Heights set in my high school: there was incest, there was a fire. It was great. But it was a total mess because I didn’t know how to punctuate dialogue — I didn’t know anything. I could barely type, let alone plot something that was three hundred something pages…Every publisher you have ever heard of turned it down. I had some meetings with editors, but it was a total disaster. (Full-Stop)
9. I am the most rejected writer I know. I say that confidently and proudly. It means that I am completely immune. It doesn’t hurt my feelings at all. My drive remains strong — stronger than ever. I’m like the little engine that, you know, won’t give up. (Full-Stop)
10. After all three of these novels got sent out and rejected everywhere I decided [that] maybe I should think about an MFA program. (Full-Stop)
11. No matter how many books you sell, how fancy you get—your first novel is when your first grade teacher shows up, your childhood dentist, your friends’ parents. It’s the biggest victory lap an author can have, and I’m glad that mine was done covered in feathers and rhinestones. (Literary Hub)
12. I certainly think that writers are influenced by our time and circumstances—I see that much more clearly the older I get—no one writes in a vacuum. Different books can feel true to us at different points in our lives. (The Rumpus)

Emma Straub is an American novelist and bookstore owner. She is a writer of literary women’s fiction. She is the New York Times-bestselling author of seven books for adults: the novels American Fantasy, This Time Tomorrow, All Adults Here, The Vacationers, Modern Lovers, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. She is also the author of three picture books: Gaga Mistake Day, which she co-wrote with her mother, Mama Hug, and Very Good Hats. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and her work has been published in more than 20 languages. Emma and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York. She is the daughter of horror and suspense writer Peter Straub. Follow her on Instagram.

Source for image: Author’s website Credit Alpha Smoot

by Amanda Patterson

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