Daneile Joyce "Dani" Shapiro is the author of five novels and the best-selling memoirs Slow Motion and Devotion. She has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and ELLE. Read full biography of Dani Shapiro →
I'm an urban person who loves living in the country.
If you write memoir, it can't be about blame or hurt; it has to be creative.
Music inspires me and puts me in the right mood, but to actually listen to it when I write - I find it gets in the way.
My desk is covered with talismans: pieces of rose quartz, wishing stones from a favorite beach.
My parents made the decision never to focus on my looks, and I had no sense of myself as beautiful.
Success is so fleeting; even if you get a good book deal, or your book is a huge success, there's always the fear: 'What about the next... →
When it comes to the personal essays I write, I just convince myself that no one will ever read them.
With each book you write you have to learn how to write that book - so every time, you have to start all over again.
Devotion, as it relates to the title of my memoir, means fidelity - as in fidelity to a person or a practice. I think it's certainly possible to... →
I do strongly identify with being Jewish. I was raised Orthodox and had a childhood complicated by the fact that my father was deeply religious and... →
I live with my family on the top of a hill in the country, and during the days, my house is quiet, save for the occasional excitement of the FedEx... →
I was raised in an orthodox Jewish home where it was expected that, as a woman, I'd marry an investment banker, raise kids in the suburbs and go... →
If you are a writer or any kind of artist, if you change something as fundamental as where you live - the way you live - then I think you change the... →
Daneile Joyce "Dani" Shapiro is the author of five novels and the best-selling memoirs Slow Motion and Devotion. She has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and ELLE.