Author

One of the main reasons I write fiction is to try to understand what life is like for people other than myself, to try to see the world through my characters' eyes. I often find that I'm able to understand certain emotional truths about my own life by exploring things from different vantages.

From Molly Antopol

In terms of the Eastern Europe stories, my family is originally from there; even as a kid, it was the Russian writers I loved most, and I've spent a substantial amount of time there myself, traveling and on research grants.

From Molly Antopol

The idea that we should write towards the unknown aspects of our experience was totally groundbreaking for me. It gave me the license I needed to try to write outside myself. This attitude has deeply informed my approach to fiction, emboldening me to write characters with voices or situations that are vastly different from my own.

From Molly Antopol

In a sense, any story that anyone writes is going to be autobiographical - whether it deals directly with the author's experience or not - because it captures what we're obsessed with while working on that particular piece.

From Molly Antopol

When I'm writing a story, which takes me a year or more, I can feel my character living with me - they're responding to whatever funny, familial, or social situation I'm in, and I think about their responses constantly.

From Molly Antopol

All the stories in 'The UnAmericans' required interviews, travel, hours and hours in the archives. All of that stuff is so important in the beginning, but I reach a point where I have to shuck it away.

From Molly Antopol

I come from a big family of storytellers and, growing up, I liked hearing about the years before I was born.

From Molly Antopol

I've never believed it's a fiction writer's job to create an exact replica of the past, a diorama the reader can step right into. But it is my responsibility to learn everything of the world I'm writing about, to become an expert in the politics and history that formed my characters' identities.

From Molly Antopol

I like that it's challenging - that when I'm writing, I feel as if I'm pouring everything I have into the story until there's nothing left and I have to begin thinking about a new world and set of circumstances to research and explore.

From Molly Antopol

I've been religiously reading the O. Henry Prize anthologies every year since college, when I first began trying to write stories. Many of the authors whose work I cherish the most were people I first learned about through The O. Henry Prize Stories - and then I'd go search for their books.

From Molly Antopol

Molly Antopol

Notable Quotes

Authors with Similar Views

Judy Blume

Virginia Henley

Anita Diament

John Irving

Katherine Dunn

Authors with Opposing Views

Judy Blume

Simon Schama

Tibor Fischer

Whit Stillman

Aimee Bender