As a writer, I am heavily influenced by Francesca Lia Block, a young adult fiction writer from California. I spent a lot of my youth reading her works, my favorite being Weetzie Bat. She is influenced heavily by Greek myth, the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez and the modernist poetry of T.S. Eliot and H.D. Of life, she says, "I believe life is infused with magic. I believe in creativity and art as experiences of magic." Her writing reflects this ideology, weaving stories set in modern day Los Angeles with wood nymphs and angels.
I am also very drawn to her ability to create imagery. Her characters are so well defined they feel like friends and family members, and she never uses the same adjective twice.
“She knew they were all afraid. But love and disease are both like electricity, Weetzie thought. They are always there -- you can't see or smell or hear, touch or taste them, but you know they are there like a current in the air. We can choose, Weetzie thought, we can choose to plug into the love current instead.”
― Francesca Lia Block, Weetzie Bat
As an adult I found myself drawn to the writings of
Anaïs Nin. Her writing shows the influence of the Surrealist movement and her study of psychoanalysis. Nin pushed the boundaries for women in regards to their expression of sexuality.
“I feel a little like the moon who took possession of you for a moment and then returned your soul to you. You should not love me. One ought not to love the moon. If you come too near me, I will hurt you.”
What are your creative writing influences?
