ZZ Packer

…I’ve lived in so many places, so I almost feel as though I’m not a native of any one place—though, I definitely consider myself a Southerner. I was raised in Louisville, Kentucky and Atlanta, Georgia. But other places in terms of writing: I’ve written about Baltimore quite a bit, even though in terms of the percentage of my life lived in certain places, Baltimore probably occupies a very small percentage. It’s just been a large part of my imagination in terms of where stories are set…

— ZZ Packer

James Baldwin once said that he wasn't able to really write about America until he left America. And I have this feeling that if you’re in a place, sometimes it’s very difficult to write about it honestly because you’re still dealing with your living in that place, and you don’t have as much perspective. Whereas, if you leave a place, then everything that that place means to you comes into sharper relief, compared to where you’re now living…

— ZZ Packer

Many writers believe that voice, which is character-based, is the same as style, which I believe is more author-based. The writer almost always has her own style, but I believe that in addition to being drawn to a particular author’s style, readers are also drawn to the singularity of the fictive voice, which is somewhat variant from work to work…

— ZZ Packer