Dorothy Allison: Glory and Writing

Lit Hub has a wonderful, and brief, interview of author Dorothy Allison that I highly recommend reading.

There are quite a few nice nuggets of writing advice, any of which I could’ve chosen to relate here, but the below stuck out:

“To tell you the truth, what I’m reaching for is glory.

“Glory is language on the page that doesn’t just resonate but evokes an immediate, emotionally tinged response in the listener or the reader. Glory does not require approval. Glory is like the angels take over and you’re flying.”

Later in the interview she is asked about her work as a writing professor and what she believes is the biggest obstacle to writers:

“They’ve been conditioned—especially young Southern writers—to write in a voice that is not their own. I try to get them to take a breath and let that go. By that I mean you have to allow yourself to use a voice that is unique and your own, that is not what you’ve read before. There is a certain impulse in all writers to want to please. You have to give up wanting to please.”

As such, this makes a nice piece of advice for how to begin to find glory on the page. Though, I would say that an MFA program would perhaps make you aware of this issue of voice, but where you find your voice is in the practice of writing by drawing on lived experience.

Allison is best known for Bastard out of Carolina.