'Finding your comfortable writing voice'

 

“The most important thing when starting out with essay writing is to find a voice with which you're comfortable. You need to find a persona that is very much like you, but slightly caricatured.” – Anne Fadiman

The daughter of renowned literary, radio, and television personality Clifton Fadimam and World War II correspondent and author Annalee Jacoby Fadiman, Anne was born on this date in 1953.  A founding editor of the Library of Congress magazine Civilization, she has had a great career as a writer, editor and teacher.  At Yale, Fadiman teaches nonfiction writing and serves as a mentor to students who are considering careers in writing or editing.

 

But it was her award-winning book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down that brought her the most acclaim (and many awards). Researched in a small county hospital in California, it examines a Hmong immigrant family and their cultural, linguistic, and medical struggles in seeking treatment for their epileptic child.  In 2017 she wrote a well-received memoir, The Wine Lover's Daughter.  Fadiman is the only writer to have won national magazine awards for both reporting and essays.

  

She said that while she is grateful for modern electronics and how they have improved the lives of writers and readers alike, she prefers a text copy to an e-book. 

 

“There is something about holding a book - the smell and the world of association,” she said. “Even when e-books are perfected, as they surely will be, I think it will be like being in bed with a very well-made robot rather than a warm, soft, human being whom you love.”