I'm not a writing group member, not a joiner in that way. I don't seek a wide swath of feedback.

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• Claire Messud:

  Yes, writing is essential to me. It's my way of living in the world.

• Claire Messud:

  I believe that, in an ideal world, writers would feel free to write what matters to them without ha

• Claire Messud:

  The effort to create a work of art that is true and potentially lasting, that is the very best work

• Claire Messud:

  The more accurately one can illuminate a particular human experience, the better the work of art.

• Claire Messud:

  As any of us approaches middle age, we inevitably come up against our limitations: the realization

• Claire Messud:

  If I had to summarize, most broadly, my concerns as a writer, I'd say the question 'How then must w

• Claire Messud:

  I wanted to write a voice that for me, as a reader, had been missing from the chorus: the voice of

• Claire Messud:

  An abiding preoccupation for me is how much of our lives are invisible and unknown by other people,

• Claire Messud:

  As a reader since very early, I have found myself drawn to rants.

• Claire Messud:

  I was in my senior year of high school when I read 'Notes From Underground' by Dostoyevsky, and it