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Suzan-Lori Parks has not joined FLAPSS and has not endorsed it. This page is a reference record assembled from published interviews and public remarks. Every answer below is a direct quotation with the source and date shown next to it.

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Suzan-Lori Parks

Playwright, screenwriter and novelist; Pulitzer Prize for Drama, 2002

United States · b. 1963

Arts and letters

About

American dramatist, the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, for Topdog/Underdog. Born in Fort Knox, Kentucky, she moved frequently as a child because of her father’s army career, including four years in West Germany. She was encouraged toward the theatre by James Baldwin while a student at Mount Holyoke College.

3 answers

Question What is the part of your job that people would be surprised is most of your job? Craft & work read 53 other answers →
Right. And let’s put Michelangelo in quotes, ’cause was he really the one who actually said that? But, anyway, the idea still holds. I feel that whatever I’m writing exists already. Maybe that’s because of a glitch in the space-time continuum and when I write I’m actually putting my living self behind the present moment in time. Like I’m following something through the woods. Eyes open. Ears open. Heart open. And I’m following a path that is sometimes behind me.
Recorded Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, The Paris Review, Issue 235, Winter 2020, 2020 source ↗
Question Do you rely on inspiration or discipline to make work? Craft & work read 47 other answers →
It’s just a devotion to the greater beautiful thing that allows us all to be here. It sounds a little “woo-woo,” but basically, it’s manifested in me because I’m a writer. I get up every morning, and I write. I sit. As Paul knows, I sit. I have my notebook. I’m scribbling. “Don’t talk to me right now, honey. I’m writing.” That’s my thing. That’s how I manifest it. Someone who runs the hurdles, or a tennis player, would manifest it daily, going out there and hitting balls or whatever they do.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Washington, D.C., 22 June 2007 source ↗

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