On Wednesday evening, Pulitzer Prize winning writer Anna Quindlen spoke on everything from Harry Potter to the lack of women on the Op-Ed newspaper pages.
Quindlen is one of those rare writers who produces successful works in both non-fiction and fiction. Besides working as a regular columnist for Newsweek and the New York Times, Quindlen has also written various best-selling books, such as “One True Thing” and “Black and Blue.” Despite an extremely warm and stuffy Memorial Chapel that had listeners awkwardly fanning themselves with slips of paper, Quindlen kept her audience enthralled for an hour and a half
Quindlen’s talk mainly addressed the role reading played in her own life and in the lives of children.
“In fifteen years no one will remember who won ‘American Idol’,” she quipped. “But children will remember Harry Potter the way I remember Jo, Beth and Meg March.”
Sometimes Quindlen’s talk resembled an intimate conversation between friends, in which she reminisced on the importance of books from her childhood.
“Even Kafka cut his teeth by reading Sherlock Holmes,” she said. “Who can imagine Kafka as a child?”
The audience was a mixture of Wesleyan students and a much older crowd.
“I think Anna Quindlen appeals to a slightly older audience,” said Lucia Pier ’08. “I mean, she does write a lot about being a mother and having kids.”
Quindlen confirmed this, as she concluded the formal part of her talk by reading a column she wrote 14 years ago about her children’s reading habits. She described her happiness when she encountered her son reading “The Phantom Tollbooth” and “A Wrinkle in Time.” She emphasized the importance of writing in her life when she asked, to the audience’s enjoyment, “Who would want to be the President of the United States when you could be D.H. Lawrence?”
During a question-and-answer session, Quindlen talked more about her experience as a non-fiction writer.
“There’s a feeling among the white, male editors that once there’s one woman columnist on the Op-Ed page, that’s all they need,” she said.
She praised Barnard, the all-female college she attended, for turning her into the confrontational, assertive woman she is today.
Quindlen also showed a more personable and quirky side while taking questions from the audience. She told entertaining anecdotes about giving readings in red states, where picketers waited outside in protest against her pro-abortion stance. She also confessed that she was a weekly reader of People magazine. Judging from the audience’s reaction, many must have sympathized with her guilty pleasure.
Ultimately, the audience reacted most strongly to Quindlen’s closing statements on the writing life. She argued that writing naturally entails hard work.
“I’ve heard students who feel that because they have to make an effort to write, it suggests they lack talent,” she said. “But just because your heart sinks sometimes doesn’t mean the words won’t soar. It’s not always about sentences, it’s about confidence.”
Quindlen finished by pointing out the perils of perfectionism.
“If you’re all things to all people, then you’re nobody” she said. “Perfection works against accomplishment.”
The audience greeted these closing words with a standing ovation.
Although Quindlen’s writing may be geared towards an older audience, Wesleyan students still agreed her talk was wise and helpful for aspiring writers in the crowd.
“I came tonight for my mom, actually,” said Elissa Gross ’08. “She loves Anna Quindlen. I think her writing style is kind of self-help preachy. But I didn’t think she was preaching tonight.”
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