An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent. Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away.
I think I became a writer in order to explore my ideas and responses to the world around me, which I often found it difficult to share with others. Also I liked my autonomy, and a writer can choose his or her own working hours β midnight to dawn or whenever. The difficulty of becoming a writer never bothered me.
I knew it was going to work for me sooner or later. Lynn Goodwin. Helene Stapinski is a skilled writer and an outstanding researcher. You can learn a lot about her and about writing in this interview. When I read Murder in Matera I realized she had something special to share.
Briefly, Murder in Matera is the story of her researching the heart of a story accusing an ancestor of murder in Italy generations earlier. This is a memoir of her unrelenting research as she digs for the truth and refuses to settle for less.
This well-written and well-structured story twists and turns through the olden days, modern Italy, and contemporary America. I would go to work with her some days and type on the typewriters there. I started crafting stories and poems at around 5 years old. I would be embarrassed to show them to anyone and would hide them in a small closet in our living room at home. Eventually in high school some of my teachers noticed my talent and encouraged me to write. I became the editor of the school newspaper, won the poetry award at the literary magazine and then went on to NYU to study Journalism, since that seemed a way to make a living by writing.
