Dani Shapiro: On Life, Marriage and Creative Expression
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2017
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dani Shapiro is the New York Times bestselling author of five novels and four memoirs, including her latest, Hourglass: Time, Memory, Money.
A recent guest on Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday, she's taught writing at Columbia, NYU, The New School and Wesleyan University. Dani is also the co-founder of the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy and a contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveler.
Her new memoir, Hourglass, is a fiercely honest meditation on Dani's nearly 20 year marriage. In today's episode, we explore what it's like to build a life, a family and a career when both parents are creative professionals. We also dive into writing about a relationships that you plan to stay in, sharing deeply intimate awakenings, stumbles, fears and experiences along the way and piecing together the puzzle of your life in words.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You know, when I realized that that was what I was going to be doing, I was so horrified |
| 0:08.3 | and petrified. |
| 0:09.8 | It was not a welcome, like, oh, this is a good idea. |
| 0:12.1 | I'm going to write about my marriage. |
| 0:13.6 | Yay, it was absolutely petrifying because I was writing about a relationship that I intended |
| 0:19.3 | to stay in, one that I had no interest in betraying, but one that I wanted to find a way |
| 0:24.8 | to write about truthfully, how do you write about a relationship truthfully without betraying |
| 0:29.7 | it without betraying the person, you know, with whom you're in the relationship with. |
| 0:40.1 | This week's guest, Danny Shapiro, is a memoirist and novelist who's been on Oprah's Super |
| 0:45.0 | Soul Sunday and pretty much every other publication, media outlet. |
| 0:48.9 | You can find, we actually met a number of years back hanging out in a small gathering |
| 0:53.0 | in New York City. |
| 0:54.5 | I invited Danny on when her last book came out to talk about the writing life. |
| 0:59.8 | She's got a new book out, a memoir called Hourglass, which takes a pretty deep dive look |
| 1:05.3 | at her life over the last 18 years or so, really focusing on her marriage. |
| 1:09.8 | And it's incredibly raw, incredibly truthful, honest, revealing. |
| 1:15.2 | And I wanted to dive into that journey with her, both the things that she shared and also |
| 1:21.3 | that it was like for her as a writer, as somebody who's married and a mom, to be that revealing |
| 1:28.9 | in the work that she was doing in the world. |
| 1:31.3 | Really excited to share this conversation with you on Jonathan Fields and this is Good |
| 1:35.8 | Life Project. |
| 1:40.4 | I have sort of this interesting context with this book too, and so I finish reading it |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jonathan Fields / Acast, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Jonathan Fields / Acast and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.