Happy Birthday, Margie Orford, born 30 September 1964.
Six Quotes
- I’d never have become a writer if I hadn’t read Wuthering Heights. Imagine being able to create the electricity between Cathy and Heathcliff? That’s what I wanted to do.
- If you can’t be a trapeze artist then you might as well try writing. Your failures will be less spectacular and you won’t break your neck trying it.
- I’m a storyteller first and foremost, but murder, cruelty and power have been central to stories since the first fire in the first cave.
- Plot, though, is what gets your reader’s heart rate going, it keeps them turning the pages, it keeps them awake. I always think of the two – character/place and plot as two sides of a single sheet of paper. You can look at both, but they are indivisible.
- I don’t believe in stopping working just because I’m tired: I stop when what I’m working on is as perfect as I can make it.
- I storyboard my books while I am writing – that gives one a clear sense of place and the relationships between people. South Africa is so striking visually – the quality of the light, the drama of mountains and sea and, further inland, of deserts, is impossible to ignore. I want people to see what I see, to understand how full of contrasts this place is.
Margie Orford is a South African journalist, film director and author. She is best known for her crime novels featuring Clare Hart, which include Like Clockwork, Daddy’s Girl, and Water Music.
image
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
Photo: Saskia Schmidt
“https://www.flickr.com/photos/35803015@N03/5619110408/”
Please click here for our Literary Birthday Calendar