'Just trying to tell a story'

 

“Ijust want to be told a story, and I want to believe I'm living that story, andI don't give a thought to influences or method or any other writerly concerns.”  – Anne Tyler  Born on this date in 1941, Tyler made a splash with her novels The Accidental Tourist, and BreathingLessons, finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (BreathingLessons won the award0.   She also is wellknown in the cinematic world with 7 of her 20 novels being made into movies.  Her latest work is 2022's French Braid.

Also the author of dozens of shortstories, Tyler has earned the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Ambassador BookAward, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Sunday Times’Award for Literary Excellence.                                      Noted for her attention to detailand character development, Tyler primarily focuses her writing on everydayAmericans and the ordinary details of their lives, putting us – her readers – deepinto those lives and the trials and tribulations we all face.   “I don’t think of my work in terms ofthemes," she said.   "I’m just trying to tell a story.”
Her advise to new writers issimple:    “Write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them -without a thought about publication - and only in the last draft to considerhow the work will look from the outside.”