Pulitzer-winning journalist, novelist speaks in Eagle Theatre

Fiction writer and journalist Anna Quindlen spoke at the school’s Eagle Theatre on Sunday, May 9, from approximately 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Quindlen’s talk focused on her newest novel “Every Last One,” parenting and politics. The Commonwealth Club of California sponsored the talk, which will be broadcast on public radio.

Quindlen won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for her column with The New York Times and was a columnist for Newsweek from 2000 to 2009.

The Talon interviewed Quindlen before her talk. The transcript of the interview is below.

Talon: How did you get started with writing?

Quindlen: When I was young, I was not a really satisfactory little girl in a lot of ways. I was really outspoken and talkative, and I got in a lot of trouble for those things in Catholic school. But the one thing that I always got positive reinforcement from teachers for was writing. There’s something about having people in a position of power and influence saying to you over and over again, ‘You’re good at this, and you should keep doing it.’ It makes you want to keep doing it. So it was really due to teachers that I would someday became a writer.

Talon: So did you write beyond just classroom essays?

Quindlen: No, I mainly did class work, but there was so much writing required then—essays, compositions, poems, short stories—that I really did a lot of writing.

Talon: You started writing when you were relatively young, and then you started working up to publications such as The New York Times and Newsweek. What was it like to write for publications that are so widely read and influential?

Quindlen: You don’t really process it that way most of the time because first of all you’re pretty anonymous. Although my picture ran with my Newsweek column almost no one ever recognized me for that. Except for one older man from my New York neighborhood who caught me crossing the street and said, ‘I like the other one better,’ which is the kind of thing that really keeps you honest. But when you go out into the world for events like this one and people say, ‘I feel like you were writing what I was thinking,’ it’s just this incredible feeling of connection that you take home with you. So when you’re sitting at your computer, you feel like you’re having this conversation with people that you just haven’t met yet.

Talon: You have three kids, and you’re married and your family life is important. How has being a woman and a mother influenced how you approach your writing and your career?

Quindlen: Oh, in every conceivable way. I mean, first of all, I’ve written consistently about so-called ‘women’s issues.’ I’ve written frequently about feminist politics, about reproductive rights, about poverty and women, the glass ceiling, and my kids have been very influential particularly on my work as a fiction writer. Because I think that having children enables you to sort of relive life’s greatest hits. You know, the first time that they see the ocean when they’re babies, or the first time when their heart gets broken when they’re teenagers. Some of those emotions get blunted by age and experience, and you get to re-experience them through your kids’ eyes, which is invaluable to a fiction writer.

Talon: Is it hard to work as a writer while also having three children?

Quindlen: Well right now my children are all in their 20s, so I don’t have to deal with it, but yeah, it’s incredibly difficult. I did most of my writing while my children were at school, and I still basically write between the hours of about nine and three, even though I don’t have to keep school hours anymore for their sake, I still keep school hours out of habit.

Talon: So you write a lot of both fiction and non-fiction. What do you like better about each of the two different kinds of writing, and why do you write both of them?

Quindlen: Well, the great thing about writing a column is it’s a complete package. I mean, it’s usually only about 900 words. You can really whip that into shape in a day or two and the whole job is done. The thing that can be really disconcerting about writing a novel is you’re talking about 85 or 90,000 words, and it takes place over a long haul. On the other hand, it’s just a bigger, more sprawling canvas, and you get the opportunity really to explore characters and situations that just don’t appear in the same way, if at all, in your journalistic work. The question always reminds me of—we live in Manhattan, and then we have a place out in the country in Pennsylvania. People always used to try and button-hole our kids and say, ‘Which do you like better: living in the city or living in the country?’ And they’d say, ‘We like both—We don’t want to have to choose.’ And that’s what I like about writing both fiction and nonfiction. I don’t want to have to choose. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to work in both forms, which is fantastic.

Talon: Do you have any advice for students in high school who are interested in pursuing writing in college or as an interest or career?

Quindlen: Yes. If you’re writing, and you find that it’s incredibly difficult and that you’re eaten up by the sensation that you’re not doing very well, you should know that every successful writer feels the same way. This notion that if you were good it would be easy is ridiculous. I hate to write, I am always convinced that I’m writing badly, and I find it really challenging. And if you’re a high school student and you feel the same way, then we’re in the same boat. But if you want to do it, what you have to do is just do it. You can’t think about it, you can’t plan for it, and you can’t wait for inspiration, because inspiration doesn’t come. You just have to put your butt down on the seat of a chair and start writing. It’s as simple as that.