It's a 'mysterious, surprising act'

 

“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 Melbourne, Australia in November of 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.   

 

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.  Also a much sought-after speaker, she has been a professor of writing and a distinguished writer-in-residence at several major universities in Australia, Canada, France, England and the U.S.

 

 “I am always putting my characters into situations of acute moral dilemma to find out what they will do,” Hospital 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.”