The 'surprising' act of writing

“The act of writing surprises me all the time. A miraculous thing happens when you have an idea and you want to convert it into words... and then you start to create a work of art, and that's another miracle, and it remains mysterious to the writer, or to this writer anyway.” – Janette Turner Hospital

Born in Australia on this date in 1942, Hospital has lived most of her adult life in the U.S. and Canada, particularly since beginning her writing career in the late 1970s (with short stories) and early 1980s with her first novel, the award-winning The Ivory Swing.   

 

Since then her numerous stories and novels – led by Borderline and Orpheus Lost – have won many international literary awards, including the Steele Rudd Award for Best Collection of Short Stories in 2012.      She’s also been a much sought-after speaker and has served as a professor of writing and as distinguished writer-in-residence at major universities in Australia, Canada, France, England and the U.S.

Hospital said that themes of dislocation and connection are constant in her work, and she likes to combine them with themes of moral choice and moral courage.  “I am always putting my characters into situations of acute moral dilemma to find out what they will do,” she said.  “I would like to think that my writing forces the reader to make inner moral and political choices and alignments, but does not tell the reader what such alignments should be.”

Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend by clicking the g+1 button below.