Fired by 'The wonder of reading'

 

“Ialways read poetry before I write, to sensitize me to the rhythms and music oflanguage. . . A novelist can get by on story, but the poet has nothing butthe words.”—Janet Fitch

 

Bornin Los Angeles on Nov. 9, 1955, Fitch is the author of White Oleander.

 

“Myfather was an engineer - he wasn't literary, not a writer or a journalist, buthe was one of the world's great readers,” she said, “and he instilled that inme.  The wonder of reading. When you're a little kid, you are small,your life is small - you're terrifically aware of that. But when you read, youcan ride Arabian horses across the desert; you can be adogsledder."  That, she said, is what she strives for her ownwriting to do.

 

Planningto be a historian shefound herself, instead, drawn to writing about things historical and soshe did.   Among her other novels are the bestsellers Paint It Black, namedafter the Rolling Stones song and also made into a movie, and Chimes ofa Lost Cathedral.  

 

“Iwrite all the time,” she said, “whether I feel like it or not. I never getinspired unless I'm already writing.

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