Work
West's first writing was published in 1939, a short story called "99.6." Her early success came from publishing short stories in literary journals.
Much of her work concerns Indiana Quakers, despite the fact she spent much of her life in California. Asked about this in an interview, she said, "I write about Indiana because knowing little about it, I can create it." Comparing herself to other authors who created fictional universes, she remarked:
- "Roth wrote The Breast. Would you ask him how he could do this since he had never been a breast? Adams wrote Watership Down. Would you ask him how he could do this since he admitted his rabbit knowledge came from a book about rabbits? ... And those hobbits!... I am a bigger risk-taker than these others. The Hoosiers can contradict me. No rabbit, hobbit, or breast has been known to speak up in reply to their exploiters."
Her stories, although shaped by her imagination, are loosely based on tales told to her by her mother and grandmother of their life in rural Indiana. The characters in her 1969 book 'Except for Me and Thee' are based on Joshua and Elizabeth Milhous, the great grandparents she shares with President Nixon.
Read more about this topic: Jessamyn West (writer)
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“And men left down their work and came,
And women with petticoats coloured like flame.
And little bare feet that were blue with cold,
Went dancing back to the age of gold,
And all the world went gay, went gay,
For half an hour in the street to-day.”
—“Seumas” “O’Sullivan” (1879–1958)
“But this rough magic
I here abjure, and when I have required
Some heavenly music—which even now I do—
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“How dare I read Washington’s campaigns, when I have not answered the letters of my own correspondents? Is not that a just objection to much of our reading? It is a pusillanimous desertion of our work to gaze after our neighbours. It is peeping.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)