Q&A With Writer Jane Vandenburgh on W³ Sidecar

Excerpt:Why do you write?I write because I’m curious about all the beauty of this world and want to name it and to draw it toward me. I write to create a sense of palpable intimacy with my readers, by saying, “This is who I am, what I think and feel and value, but who are you?”I write, too, out of the memorial urge, to name those I’ve loved and have lost, including both the parents I lost before age ten, also the brother I mentioned before. My latest book is about the dogs we’ve had, the places I’ve walked those dogs, what home is, and the friends I’ve made on either coast because, in part, of our shared love of animals. I write to remember what I don’t want forgotten.I write, too, to offer hope: it is possible, with luck, to survive as tragic a childhood as my own and to find the work you love to do and the people you want to do it with. I write to say it’s entirely likely that as a writer you can construct your own happy ending, as I have sought to do. I write because I want to and indeed, because I must and because writing brings me so much of the joy I know.For the full Q&A session, click here: w3sidecar.tumblr.com