With fiction, the works of women are often over-interpreted as autobiography, especially when the main character is a woman, especially if she is seen as privileged.
Kate ZambrenoI am curious to see what books will emerge from all this writing online that's the result of those who grew up pouring their feelings out on Livejournal or Tumblr - excessive, sometimes automatic, sometimes enraged, emotional, while also quite intellectual - or if formal books will emerge at all, if that's not the point of these unmediated raw spaces. I'm excited by the possibility.
Kate ZambrenoHow difficult it was for a woman, once she was named by doctors, to become a writer, because many aspects of her behavior that are accepted in the genius or creative man are regarded as dangerous in the woman.
Kate ZambrenoPeople are more concerned about the economy then these ridiculous concerns as to gender inequity in society, as manifested in marriages, in the mental health system, and then in literature.
Kate ZambrenoI try to tell student writers to read as much as possible, not only literature but philosophy, theory, and to form obsessions. There's a big taboo in fiction creative writing workshops against using the self at all, and I think I try to encourage students to write the self, but to connect the self to something larger, which is to be this thinking, seeing, searching, eternally curious person, and that writing can come out of investigating and trying to understand confusion, and doubts, and obsessions.
Kate Zambreno