Prompt: Talk about an author who speaks to you the most.

Out of all the choices I would say Didion, because I like the subtlety that her memoir writing poked through. She had the ability to describe the house she lived in in 1971 and the memories that came with it while really talking about a historical event that she witnessed. She had the ability to make the story not completely about her and that’s why people question if it’s memoir writing or not. She inspires me in my own writing because of her beautiful descriptions of simple places like a home she lived in or a broken rib that amounted to serious questions about age and her place in the world. She is able to relate to events even if she didn’t live them and makes the reader feel as if she is an expert on them. 

I also felt a connection to Lise Yasuo’s film  Family Gathering. She was able to document a hardship in her family many years after the fact. The pain that they went through  in the internment camps during WW2 has a similar connection to my own writing. My grandmother was in the Japanese run concentration camps though. It makes you look at the real issues that came with integrating yourself back in society after becoming a “criminal” to others.