Laura Pope: Why I Write

Laura Pope: Why I Write. Photo by Geneve Hoffman

Laura Pope is a great writer and someone I've worked with for quite some time. I asked her why she writes. In response, she sent a Word Scramble, which, she said, reflects the haphazard way she came to writing.

Her response:

Writer Shuffle: insatiable, Da Vinci’s drawings at Queen’s Gallery, 1969;voracious reader; pathos, eros, regret, passion, The Secret Garden; near death in the desert; da Bronx, Translate raw to Relatable, essays of George orwell; Share a Place, decode world; Compulsion; Tell a Story, words universal and personal, Peripatetic youth; Stumble, saved from london lorry; Produce then go fallow -repeat, Jill dawson, Wide-ranging and voracious reader, Sierra Nevadas, visuals & words alone and together; Rachel joyce, Bernal Diaz limns conquest of mexico; Spill a Secret; short stories of Maupassant and O. Henry, Artful guide Ella; Translate Feelings; trees, dogs, clouds, oceans; technical & freestyle & distinct, First kiss in Cairngorm mts; Launch Characters, love letters of Georgia o’keeffe and anias nin; Try Again; Sam Shepard, Sparkle of milky way in inky monhegan; south & west before east, JoJo & kate, Remember & Re-Arrange; Long Beach; Mentors michael, marsh, jan, rae, ghb; a slow to read kid;  Growing up tough with Elena Ferrante; narrate, disseminate, document, describe, assemble, whisper, finesse, suggest, organize; Miami, no limits just words in variations; awe, guilt, chance; Must.