Get inspired by author Julia Alvarez (+ assignment!)
Fabulous quotes, book recs, and ideas from author Julia Alvarez, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, from Zibby's Book Club tonight!
Thoughts on writing, life, productivity and success from Zibby’s Book Club session with Julia Alvarez, The Cemetery of Untold Stories. Don’t miss the next one! Join Zibby’s Book Club here. Listen to my podcast with Julia here.
Quotes from Julia Alvarez:
“Everybody is a walking library.”
“You know when you’re in the current of the story. Let it take you there.”
“Put muddy tracks all over the page because you can clean that up.”
“I have friends who have three-book deals. I don’t do three-book deals. I might not make those three books! Let the story that has to be to told by you come next, rather than making the writing a product.”
“Reading poetry for me is a kind of prayer.”
“Cemeteries are writing prompts.”
“It’s odd now because our instrument of writing is also the instrument of our distraction. It’s like a violinist who picks up a violin to play and then it has everything else on it.”
“My doctor said, ‘Your eye won’t get better. But you will.’”
“The best kind of activism is to do what you love.”
Books on sight loss:
The Beauty of Dusk by Frank Bruni
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Country of the Blind by Andrew Leland
What Julia’s reading now:
Poets: Maggie Smith, Ada Limon
Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck
Cover designer: Gaby D’Alessandro
Assignment: It’s the Summer. Let’s Get Dark.
Before next book club (or before the end of the summer if you need an extension), visit a cemetery. Use the gravestones as prompts. Send me your stories, poems, and/or essays. Let’s make a baby anthology! Julia can blurb. ;-) Email your work to info@zibbyowens.com.
Thanks, Julia!
Our next book club meets June 26th at 7 pm with Genevieve Kingston, Did I Ever Tell You? Learn more about the club here!!
Thank you! Biggest surprise having Julia Alvarez for the whole hour!! I'm sorry I said I live in Southport , CT -but not what I do. I'm a reader, a former librarian, a senior paralegal at a law firm and a reader.... Learned so much from ALL tonight! Thanks for all the book recs! Thanks Zibby for hosting the book group and making this fabulous information available!
Awesome book club 💖💖