Leslie Jamison quotes

Armchair poverty tourism has been around as long as authors have written about class. As an author, I have struggled myself with the nuances of writing about poverty without reducing any community to a catalog of its difficulties. (Leslie Jamison)

The global phenomenon of poverty tourism - or 'poorism' - has become increasingly popular during the past few years. Tourists pay to be guided through the favelas of Brazil and the shantytowns of South Africa. The recently opened Los Angeles Gang Tour carries visitors through battle-scarred territories of urban violence and deprivation.

Leslie Jamison

Whenever I've been stuck on a project, it's always brought me solace to the return to books that moved me in the past. It's a nice way to get outside my own head; and it brings me back to one of the most important reasons I write at all: to bring some pleasure to readers, to make them think or feel.

Leslie Jamison

It's one of the most liberating things I experience in writing - letting yourself get rid of a gesture or character or plot point that always nagged, even if you couldn't admit to yourself that it did.

Leslie Jamison

Redeeming subjects from cliche is its own pleasure and privilege.

Leslie Jamison

The 'here' of Watts is pastel houses with window gratings in curly patterns. 'Here' is yard sales with bins full of stuffed animals and used water guns. Here is Crips turf.

Leslie Jamison

I've been lucky enough to work with extraordinary teachers along the way, and I'm excited to share what I've learned with graduate students at SNHU. I'm just as excited for what I'll learn from them.

Leslie Jamison

After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always put it aside for a while. It doesn't matter if it's a story or a novel, I find that when it's still fresh in my mind I'm either thoroughly sick of its flaws or completely blind to them. Either way, I'm unable to make substantive edits of any value.

Leslie Jamison

The publishing industry, unsurprisingly, is full of different people who love different things and express that love in different languages. Find the people, the editors and agents, with whom you share some language, and some sense of what makes literature worth reading.

Leslie Jamison