American - Writer | 1968 -
Citizenship and ethnicity can become, in certain contexts, restrictive, and perhaps that's one reason I was interested in people who feel compelled to mask their origins and thereby circumvent the restrictions.
Rachel Kushner
PeopleMaskFeelCitizenshipBecome
It's no secret that Cuba is a typical Latin American culture in that it has a fair amount of homophobia. Homosexuals have been notoriously persecuted under Fidel's government.
CultureGovernmentAmericanCuba
Prayer is so complicated.
PrayerComplicated
One is sometimes meant to reassure the reader that she's qualified to write about a certain topic.
SometimesWriteSheAboutQualified
The 1970s seemed particularly playful. People were trying to make work that couldn't be sold.
WorkPeopleTryingPlayfulMake
Painting was a problem - you produce a thing, and then you sell it and get money, and that was quickly considered totally uncool.
MoneyPaintingProblemYouGetSell
The Seventies seemed like this really open time. There were a lot of strong women characters deciding what kind of artists they wanted to be.
WomenTimeStrongKindStrong Women
I knew that I wanted to write about a very young woman because I wanted to see the eyes of the art world in a fresh or even slightly naive way. Because there's something very honest about entering a room and not having a read on everyone there.
EyesArtWomanWorldYoungWay
These women were taking over these former manufacturing warehouses in SoHo and figuring out a way to be fashionable and viable without money. It's hard to imagine a life like that in Manhattan now - there's something romantic about it.
LifeWomenRomanticMoneyNowWay
For me, everything about the telling is guided by tone. It's a bit mysterious; it's either there, or it isn't.
MeMysteriousEverythingToneEither
Tone is somewhat totalising in that, once I locate it, it tells me what kind of syntax to use, what word choices to make, how much white space to leave on the page, what sentence length, what the rhythmic patterning will be. If I can't find the tone, I sometimes try narrating through the point of view of someone else.
SpaceMeChoicesViewSomeoneFind
The interaction between the two matters, but to me, each doesn't really exist independently of the other, so I'm not ever faced with a situation where the tone is wrong for the story, or the story wrong for the tone. They are two parts of one thing.
MeStorySituationWrongMatters
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Rachel Kushner quotes