I get really starstruck and tongue tied when I'm around other writers and the conversation tends not to go well.
Jennifer Weiner
My feeling about my own work is, I could be writing 'The Aeneid' and they would still have to call it chick lit or mommy lit or menopausal old hag lit.
The difference between people who believe they have books inside of them and those who actually write books is sheer cussed persistence - the ability to make yourself work at your craft, every day - the belief, even in the face of obstacles, that you've got something worth saying.
Whenever people with money have power over people with less money, you have the potential for exploitation.
Instead of hoping that some day the boys' club will open its doors, we can form our own clubs, define 'worthy' our own way, and celebrate the books and voices that we decide deserve celebration.
Having a day job again I found really kind of fueled my fiction, because it became almost this forbidden thing where I had to sneak off and do it in private.
I've always been interested in the economics of reproduction, who gets what they want when it comes to childbearing and how these days, money is a tremendous advantage.
I'm not in charge of my life.
I'm not cut out to be a famous person; I can't do my hair and makeup well enough.
I went to Princeton, I minored in women's studies.
I don't particularly like being angry about stuff. I'd rather hang out with my daughter and write my little books.
I think it's a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it's literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it's romance, or a beach book - in short, it's something unworthy of a serious critic's attention.
I don't write literary fiction - I write books that are entertaining, but are also, I hope, well-constructed and thoughtful and funny and have things to say about men and women and families and children and life in America today.
If you write thrillers or mysteries or horror fiction or quote-unquote speculative fiction, men might read you, and the 'Times' might notice you.
I was an English major in college, took a ton of creative writing courses, and was a newspaper reporter for 10 years.
Character is character and voice is voice, which translates nicely from writing novels to writing TV. But the process is different. You have a writer's room, people pitch you jokes and you collaborate.
There's something really nice about writing something on Wednesday and watching it being performed live for a studio audience on Tuesday. You never really get that with novels.
Being a novelist is hard for anyone - male or female. You don't get to quit your day job.
I wrote my first books when I was single and then I got married and then had a kid and there were different things happening in my life.
Right now women are using surrogates because they can't be pregnant. What worries me is the possibility that soon they'll use surrogates because they don't want to be pregnant.
Every mother I've ever met, pretty much without exception, is doing the best job she can ever do.
People say I'm not good at writing about men. My dad left when I was 16. Give me a break. I'm doing the best I can.
I sometimes read about authors who say they require a perfectly silent room maintained at precisely 68 degrees, with trash bags taped over the windows and a white-noise machine in the corner to write, and I think, 'Who are these people, and do any of them have kids?'
My book sales make 'real writers' possible.
Women are far and away the bigger consumers of fiction than men, but men are still far and away the more reviewed, the more critically esteemed, the more respected. That can get frustrating.
People are always coming up to me with my books and saying, 'You write these things I think but I could never say.'
I wonder if novels work for women because they give us a safe place to talk about our ish.
I can carry a tune with a three-note range. Once I'm out of that range, I'm in trouble.
Many writers secretly long to be performers. You always get the 'if you weren't a writer' question. I would be a back-up singer, to stand in the back and go like 'do, do, do.'
Money is a tremendous advantage in just about everything, but in terms of reproduction, if you're a poor woman and you are infertile, it's like too bad, so sad. And if you are a wealthy woman, you can kind of buy whatever you want.
If you write chick lit, and if you're a New Yorker, and if your book becomes the topic of pop-culture fascination, the paper might make dismissive and ignorant mention of your book. If you write romance, forget about it. You'll be lucky if they spell your name right on the bestseller list.
I also believe that if you're really a writer, you'll write, and that nobody could stop you.
