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doris lessing

black and white photo of icelandic ponies
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes

Screw You, and the Icelandic Pony You Rode In On

by michelleweber February 28, 2017October 19, 2022

Novelist Nell Zink, in n+1, takes readers on a rambling but sharp journey through writers and novels of the 20th century in the name of exploring realism, compassion, and justice in fiction.

Posted inEditor's Pick

Writing for Rejection (and Reading Doris Lessing)

by michelleweber February 24, 2017October 19, 2022

On reality, writing, publishing, fiction, non-fiction, Doris Lessing, and femininity: a writer muses on writing that impacted her, and what it means to write fiction at all.

Posted inNonfiction, Quotes, Unapologetic Women

Jenny Diski Remembers Doris Lessing: Why Can’t People Be Sensible?

by Krista Stevens August 20, 2015October 19, 2022

Jenny Diski remembers Doris Lessing’s unemotional approach to motherhood and life.

Posted inNonfiction, Quotes

Life as a Teenage Girl, Living with Doris Lessing

by juliawick January 15, 2015October 19, 2022

It was a famously cold winter. I’d come from a snowbound Hove, where I’d spent hours sitting and brooding, wrapped up but shivering on the frozen pebbled beach staring out at an icy sea, writing poetry about seagulls and loneliness (no longer extant, thank heavens, though that’s not to say that I wouldn’t write about […]

Posted inProfiles & Interviews, Quotes

Doris Lessing on What It Means to Be a Writer

by heymarkarms November 17, 2013October 19, 2022

“I think a writer’s job is to provoke questions. I like to think that if someone’s read a book of mine, they’ve had—I don’t know what—the literary equivalent of a shower. Something that would start them thinking in a slightly different way perhaps. That’s what I think writers are for. This is what our function […]

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