anne dillard

My blog is about Anne Dillard and first and foremost, I would like to give you a little background about this author. Anne was born of affluent parents in Connecticut who encouraged her choice in writing proffesionally. She was a rebel in high school and was influenced at that point by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. She went to college near Roanoke, Virginia called Hollins College and married her writing teacher. She graduated with a Master's degree in English and wrote a forty page thesis on Thoreau's "Waldon", and so Anne's writing reflected her love for nature. This love combined with her admiration for Thoreau's style of writing is reflected greatly in her own work as well.

On writing, Anne says "you make the path boldly, and follow it fearfully", and also quotes Jack London by saying, "every writer needs a technique, experience, and philosophical position." In describing some of the pitfalls one can encounter when writing anything of substance, what I am getting from her reading the most is that everyone has to have a focal point and that we all have things that sidetrack us from our goal, but most importantly, rewriting and changing the direction of your theme can and will happen numerous times before completion of any serious body of work and that it is part of the process.