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1 month ago | 
alicedriver.substack.com | Alice Driver
Arkansas photographer Liz Sanders in the Ozarks photographing letters written by Maurice Sendak. I thought my third book, a memoir, would be easier to write. It is based on decades of letters that Maurice Sendak, the author of Where the Wild Things Are, wrote to my mom. The letters are illustrated, and even the envelopes are works of art. It would be a cakewalk to write compared to my previous book about the meatpacking industry. Wrong!
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2 months ago | 
alicedriver.substack.com | Alice Driver
I love calling friends from the landline at home in the Ozark Mountains, where there is no cell phone service. I like being nostalgic and out of touch. I like the sound of my friends’ voices and their handwriting. I want all your tender, weird little things. Your poetry scratched into the dry earth,That note you carved into a tree,The tattoo you drew for me in the middle of the night.
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2 months ago | 
alicedriver.substack.com | Alice Driver
In these dark and distressing times, I have started a new project investigating child labor in Arkansas. Arkansas is ahead of the curve when it comes to child labor. In 2024, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families published a report noting that child labor in Arkansas increased 266% between 2020 and 2023. Does any state in the union have a more significant increase in child labor than Arkansas? I wish more people wanted to talk to me about it, but they don’t.
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2 months ago | 
alicedriver.substack.com | Alice Driver
This week has been bad. It is hard to work on a book or anything when faced with…the reality of this country. And yet, I am writing the manuscript for a book about Maurice Sendak, which I am supposed to finish. Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, one of the most popular children’s books ever, was subject to book bans. But Sendak remained irreverent, playful, and deeply committed to his work in the face of those bans.
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Jan 7, 2025 | 
alicedriver.substack.com | Alice Driver
I feel rooted in my writing. The books I will write are mapped like a constellation I can see when I close my eyes at night. The will to write has oriented me for as long as I can remember.
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Dec 20, 2024 | 
alicedriver.substack.com | Alice Driver
I have been wandering the streets of Mexico City. I love getting lost, going to the Cineteca, eating elote, chatting up booksellers, petting dogs in coats, being the first to see a forthcoming photo book, and having coffee with someone I met because their work speaks to me. I fell in love with these movies: one for its lightning energy and wildness (La Cocina), one for its tenderness (Malta), and one for the delight of surreality and costuming (El Jockey). Driver is a reader-supported publication.
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Nov 25, 2024 | 
alicedriver.substack.com | Alice Driver
The work at hand is daily work. In the process, sometimes existential, if we can immerse ourselves, we might find what we seek. Or reality delivers something irrational, horrible, terrifying, and we work with that, as nonfiction writers do. I was reminded of THE WORK when I saw Patti Smith speak at the Miami Book Festival this past weekend. She fielded questions from the audience, which were all versions of the same question: How can I be a successful writer/singer/poet like you?
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Nov 1, 2024 | 
alicedriver.substack.com | Alice Driver
It is easy to get obsessed with others' routines. I spoke to students in a food journalism class at the University of Arizona this week, and they wanted to know about mine. Some writers run ten miles daily, write several thousand words before breakfast, or keep immaculate journals. It took me years to realize that my routine would follow my own rhythms. I am not interested in strict schedules or word counts (I know this goes against much standard writing advice about getting down X words per day).
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
alicedriver.substack.com | Sarah Smarsh |Alice Driver
In interviews about my book, everyone wants to know if the poultry processing workers have read it. Oxford American published a Spanish translation of the Author’s Note, which I sent to workers. After reading it, one worker wrote, “Wow, me encanta leí un poco y está super interesante. Te rayaste Alicia con tu libro está chido no cabe duda que eres la mejor me siento orgullosa de ti”. They hope the book will be published in Spanish so they can read it.
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Sep 23, 2024 | 
alicedriver.substack.com | Alice Driver
This morning, I woke up to a text from a friend, “In this week’s print edition of The New Yorker!” To see my book reviewed in the print magazine brings back memories of my brother and I fighting over The New Yorker. As children of back-to-the-land parents, we grew up without a TV and liked to compete by reading things fast. Our rivalry was a reading rivalry. I love print magazines as I love letters, as I love carving words into the dry Arkansas soil with a stick.