Heidi Julavits: The twisty nature of psychic attack

I wont deny that I have a far more productive writing life without the Internet, mostly because I rekindle my ability to concentrate on one thing for a period of longer than three minutes. My curiosity is channeled inward rather than Internet-ward.

Heidi Julavits

three curiosity writing

I think there’s a lot of threshold weeping. Like, am I doing this? Am I really wearing this out in the world? My daughter is very much like that. She will put clothes on and her clothes just make her beside herself. They make her so sad sometimes. And you do realize you feel betrayed sometimes by your own clothing. You put something on that usually protects you and makes you OK, and sometimes you’re just not fit for the world and even your best pants can’t overcome that feeling for you.

Heidi Julavits

clothes daughter thinking

I can't even tell you what else I imagined. I can only humiliate myself to such a degree; at a certain point it becomes humorous, and this story is not meant to be humorous. This story is meant to winch your ribs open and tamper with your heart. This story is meant to make you realize that your chances of happiness in this world are terribly slim if you lack a fine imagination.

Heidi Julavits

humorous imagination heart

You know you're screwed when a Western doctor recommends acupuncture.

Heidi Julavits

acupuncture western doctors

Like Semmering Academy, the Grove School was a Gothic pile of bricks run by 1950s-era chalk drones, which maintained its cultural viability by perpetuating a weirdly seductive anxiety throughout its community. Mary herself was a victim of the seduction; despite the trying and repetitive emotional requirements of her job, she remained eternally fascinated by the wicker-thin girls and their wicker-thin mothers, all of them favoring dark wool skirts and macintoshes and unreadably far-away expressions; if she squinted, they could have emerged intact from any of the last seven decades.

Heidi Julavits

girl mother running

I calmed myself by walking into my nearby bookstore and marveling at all the books other people had written. So many people had finished and published novels; it couldn’t be so hard, right?

Heidi Julavits

marveling book people

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. In other words: Home has exceedingly low standards.

Heidi Julavits

standards home lows

No matter what you wear, not everyone is going to understand what you're saying.

Heidi Julavits

no-matter-what matter

I obviously read and adore traditional fiction. I teach traditional fiction; I also teach all kinds of not-so-traditional fiction.

Heidi Julavits

adore kind fiction

I spend far too much time on eBay buying lamps and upholstery remnants.

Heidi Julavits

ebay lamps too-much

A logic proof is: you get a starting point and an ending point, and you have to get there through all these different steps and tautologies. I approach novel writing that way. When I get to the end I have to go back and connect everything.

Heidi Julavits

steps writing way

I think what can be most shameful or embarrassing is when our bodies broadcast a secret we'd prefer no one to know. This is why I hate rashes, in particular face rashes.

Heidi Julavits

hate secret thinking

I've always said that you were too smart to have a profession. Smart people are hopeless in the face of anything actual. They are terrible cooks. They cannot dress themselves. They are children who need guidance and protecting.

Heidi Julavits

smart children people

We're taught to find the antecedents to our adult failures in childhood traumas, and so we spend our lives looking bacwards and pointing fingers, rather than bucking up and forging ahead. But what if your childhood was all a big misunderstanding? An elaborate ruse? What does that say about failure? Better yet, what does that say about potential?

Heidi Julavits

childhood what-if adults

A white girl disappears from a white prep school in a white suburb. Nobody knows what happened to her. The overall whiteness of the world is threatened. This must be resolved by whatever means possible.

Heidi Julavits

girl mean school

It's fascinating to imagine two successful writers in one house. But when you think about it, it isn't very unusual. In fact, so many writers have writer spouses.

Heidi Julavits

successful two thinking

I am simply looking for a companion with whom to spend my days, a companion who will cherish as much as I the stupidity of living in the moment, and spend every dull, amazing second with me.

Heidi Julavits

stupidity live-in-the-moment dull

I tell myself it's a virtue, my failure to sleep in my own house, or at all. I tell myself that I spend more hours than most people aware that I am alive, and that over a lifetime this adds up to more living, more aliveness. I am more alive than the rest of my family. Which is my greatest night fear. Which is why I hunt. I don't ever want to be more alive than they are.

Heidi Julavits

sleep night people

Our cover has always been really important. For those of you who haven’t seen itCharles Burns, who is a graphic artist, does four portraits, so it’s split into quadrants and there’s four heads, basically—portraits of people. We’ve actually often thought and freaked out, what if something happened to Charles Burns? Because he’s so identified with the cover of our magazine, I don’t know what we would do if anything happened to Charles Burns.

Heidi Julavits

what-if artist people

I wouldn't be myself if I weren't always trying to be someone else. I only have so much time on this earth and I want to be as many people as possible.

Heidi Julavits

always-trying earth people

The twisty nature of psychic attack - are you being attacked, or did you bring this attack on yourself? - speaks to me of an American cultural paradox we all grapple with. There's the rampant litigiousness of our society, and the desire to blame others for our misfortunes.