2min chapter

#479: Mary Karr — The Master of Memoir on Creative Process and Finding Gifts in the Suffering

The Tim Ferriss Show

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CHAPTER

What's the Value of the Commonplace Book?

"You're constantly guzzling beautiful language, so that you're kind of steeped in it," he says. "It's like fruit cake andd witin good brandy." He has been teaching for 40 years with quotes on index cards every time he gives a lecture. A poet named stanley cunits told him to do this since nineteen seventy eight.

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Transcript

Episode notes

"For me, the solution to fear is curiosity and presence. I can’t be terrified and curious at the same time." — Mary Karr

Mary Karr (@marykarrlit) is the author of three award-winning, bestselling memoirs: The Liars’ Club, Cherry, and Lit. She is also the author of The Art of Memoir, which lays bare her own process as she breaks down the craft of memoir, and Tropic of Squalor, her latest volume of poetry.

A Guggenheim fellow in poetry, Karr has won Pushcart Prizes for both verse and essays. Other grants include the Whiting Award, PEN/Martha Albrand Award, and a Radcliffe/Bunting Institute Fellowship. Karr is also the Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University.

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