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The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

Dani Shapiro: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life

The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

Srinivas Rao

Society & Culture

4.81K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2018

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Life as an artist can be full of wonder and joy, but it can also have its fair share of trials and hardships. Dani Shapiro has experienced both, and she’s shared many of those moments in her best-selling memoirs. She discusses her life and trying to find the balance between portraying the truth and putting up a mask.


Dani Shapiro is the author of five novels and best-selling memoirs, her most recent of which is titled Hourglass. Her new book, Inheritance will be published this winter. She’s also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and ELLE.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

My last memoir, Hourglass, which as I said, is about my marriage and about my family, my current family, my life as a mother,

0:09.4

but much more about my marriage.

0:11.4

When my son, I mean, there's a lot of difficult more about

0:15.0

insecurity and my son, I mean, there's a lot of difficult stuff in hourglass about insecurity and

0:17.7

disappointment and nervousness and, you know, financial insecurity in

0:21.4

particular and ups and downs and I was nervous about giving it to my son

0:27.6

I was very conscious when I was writing it that I did not want to burnish our lives they

0:32.2

they look great and they are great but they are

0:36.3

absolutely fraught and imperfect and as most artists lives are and I wanted that to come through. I didn't want it to be a

0:46.9

grim tale because it's not by any measure but I also didn't want it to be burnished in that sort of like

0:54.4

Instagrammy kind of way. And so when I gave the book to my son, he was reading it in

1:00.4

galleys and we were away. We were actually for the first time at our

1:04.2

conference in Italy, for the first time he couldn't attend it because it was this

1:08.1

junior year in high school. And he texted me when he was reading hourance and he texted me, I'm reading your book, I love it, it's helping me fall asleep at night.

1:18.0

I texted him back and I was like, are you being a wise

1:23.4

I was like, you're like, ha ha ha.

1:25.8

And he wrote back, no, it's making me feel like you and dad are close by.

1:30.8

And it was the single best response that I received of all of the responses I got to

1:37.0

Hourglass because it made me realize that I had accomplished what I hoped to in a human way, which is that my own son who has a front row seat to, you know, this life of ours was able to recognize it in the pages of that book and say,

1:53.0

yes, that's my mom and dad.

1:55.0

And to feel not scared about that, but to feel really buoyed and hopeful about. and creative minds who started movements, built thriving businesses, written

2:15.6

best-selling books, and created insanely interesting art.

...

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