The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.
I could name you a dozen superheroes whose powers I'd like to have. But if I could have any power in the world, it would be the power to read or watch a creative work and absorb the technical skill of the people who made it. Because then I could have even more fun writing. That's my core identity. I'm a writer. I just love telling stories.
It's the imagination that is involved in sci-fi, and fantasy is what draws me to it. Stories, everything.
I just want to be a part of great stories, whether I'm part of an amazing ensemble cast or I'm leading it or the antagonist or whatever.
The great pleasure for me in writing short stories is the fierce, elegant challenge.
Fans are always asking me where I get my ideas from. The answer is that I'm very curious, and I get inspiration from everywhere. I read the newspapers voraciously, so I know what's going on in real crime. I pay attention to the strange stories people tell me, and I also read a lot of scientific and forensic journals.
I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery books, and I have wonderful memories of my mom reading picture books aloud to me. I learned that words are powerful.
I'm not uncomfortable around guns - I've hunted for most of my life - but bringing them on stories is considered taboo.
I don't quite operate within the realist mode. I kind of push the stories out towards the cusp of believability - that's the area of interest for me.
I don't like family stories forcefully mixed with commercial elements.
From Ernest Hemingway's stories, I learned to listen within my stories for what went unsaid by my characters.
There's obviously a lot of controversy around the issue of hunting as there is around gambling, and I like these stories where there is a moral dimension, stories that force you to think about your prejudices about a subject and explore the extent to which they are justified.
I'm not so presumptuous to feel that they're gonna get it right away, get exactly what I have in mind. I hope that they'll enjoy looking at it at any rate, whatever it is. And that's why I started writing stories on my work.
I will say that when I first came out to the States to work on 'Jericho,' that was the only time that I've ever been frightened about a job, because in America they tell stories over such a long time, and I was petrified that I'd get bored.
All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by. religion, whatever else it has done, has provided one of the main ways of meeting this abiding need.
I was well traveled, and I created this illusion of literacy through reading and writing. I wrote a book of short stories.
Getting the chance at 40 to make up stories that other people would draw and other people would then read is pretty weird.
My son died from cancer. My granddaughter died from cancer. I have a lot of reasons to think that reality is not a friendly neighborhood. And the stories that I tell distract me, and if I do the job right, they distract people from things that are happening to them that they wish had never happened.
I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.
In the movies, you typically do get to see the script beforehand. TV is different because there are a lot of scripts in the future that you haven't seen. You commit to a show, and you have to believe in the showrunner and their team and the stories they're going to tell.
Country music tell stories. That's something that I can relate to.
I am interested in people. I'm interested in telling stories, whether that is behind the camera or in front of the camera.
I would say try to tell stories that you care about as opposed to stories that you think will sell.
I don't think you can write - at least not well - if you don't love stories, love the written word.
Readers are hungry to have their stories in the world, to see mirrors of themselves if the stories are about people like them, and to have windows if the stories are about people who have been historically absent in literature.
It is an ancient need to be told stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.
In Japan, there are storm channels on either side of the main roads. There were so many times when I'd fall into these ditches because I was lost in stories as I was walking along. It's still dangerous for me to drive. I've driven into the gate outside my house numerous times.
At some point, you're just happy to be a working actor, but to be able to do it with people you really love and enjoy spending time with, it's just such a rare thing. You hear so many horror stories.
I'm most interested in working and learning from different people and telling good stories.
I've just finished my next collection, Possible Side Effects, and I'm now working on a collection of holiday stories as well as a memoir about my relationship with my father.
Light and funny has a more compelling quality when you're younger. But I haven't abandoned the genre: I love falling down; I love Lucille Ball. It's just that a lot of those stories revolve around problems that I can't convincingly portray at this age.
Well, politics is much more severe than entertainment. You have to hit those points, in politics, word for word. You have to remember the date. You have to remember the website. You have to rehearse stories that might be asked, have anecdotes ready for questions that might come up.
All these experiments I've done over the years with technology have been asking whether I can tell stories that affect humans in a deeper way than I could without the technology.
Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process.
Films really can change a conversation and change someone's thinking and perception, especially with people of color at the center. It rarely happens. I think it's important for both the community but also the world to see people of color in all genres, especially love stories.
There's the downtown area of Tupelo. Did you see the skyscrapers? Two stories.
