I think the only difference between me and other people is that when I hear of an interesting historical incident, I immediately write it down and Google it. – Emma Donoghue
I come out of an academic background, and I’m aware that what I’m doing is simultaneously research and fiction. I want to meet both those obligations. – Emma Donoghue
Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can’t. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what’s going to happen in each chapter and each scene. – Emma Donoghue
I tend to be so lost in the work that I don’t notice the weather. My partner will come home and say, ‘Beautiful day, wasn’t it?’ and I’ll say, ‘Was it?’ as I won’t have noticed the real world at all. – Emma Donoghue
A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places. – Emma Donoghue
One thing I like about historical fiction is that I’m not constantly focusing on me, or people like me; you’re obliged to concentrate on lives that are completely other than your own. – Emma Donoghue
Every parent has those moments where they look at their child and think, ‘There’s a demon in those eyes and no one can see it but me!’ – Emma Donoghue
I’m constantly saying, ‘I read a fascinating article in ‘The New Yorker’… ‘ I say it so often that sometimes I think I have nothing interesting to say myself, I merely regurgitate ‘The New Yorker.’ – Emma Donoghue
I remember a period where my publisher said to me, ‘Look, your historical work is selling much better than your contemporary work, so please give us more historicals.’ – Emma Donoghue
Ah yes, the paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it’s killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence. – Emma Donoghue
For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it’s not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you’ll ever have. – Emma Donoghue
I’m named after Jane Austen’s Emma, and I’ve always been able to relate to her. She’s strong, confident but quite tactless. – Emma Donoghue
I think it would be a shame for any writer to let their publishers in any way corral them into a single genre. – Emma Donoghue
Before I had kids, I thought you should never lie to a kid. But now I’ve had them, I realize you almost lie to them by definition, because if you’re trying to summarize something for your 1-year-old, you put it in very simple terms. You only gradually complicate the explanation as they get older. – Emma Donoghue
I would say I have sort of a natural gift for character, and following one person’s point of view at a time, and dialogue, but I’m not naturally good at strong plot. – Emma Donoghue
You know the way there are two kinds of actors – the De Niro kind who’s always De Niro, and then somebody like Daniel Day-Lewis, who transforms himself eerily? Well, I aim to be the Daniel Day-Lewis kind of writer. I don’t have a house style. – Emma Donoghue
You’re meant to have an unhappy childhood to be a writer, but there’s a lot to be said for a very happy one that just lets you get on with it. – Emma Donoghue
You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well. – Emma Donoghue
Kids delight in ‘magical thinking’, whether in the form of the Tooth Fairy or the saints: whether you see these as comforting lies or eternal verities, they are part of how we help kids make sense of the world. – Emma Donoghue
There’s no neutral language about travel. Either travel is described in ways that make it sound kind of shallow or just glossy or silly or a way for rich people to spend their time; or else travel is often described in quite derogatory ways, you know, like immigrants swarming across borders, for instance. – Emma Donoghue
