Brought To Book
Fiction Ed Karen chats to author Adriana Trigiani
My first piece of writing was an essay Who Am I? written when I was eight years old. Really it should have been titled Who I Would Like To Become because it was about my aspirations, dreams and hopes. In our small coal mining village, Big Stone Gap, our dreams of the wider world came from books, and I wanted to be an artist of some kind. Then I read Harriet The Spy by Louise Fitzhugh and realised I wanted to be a writer.
Every book I write represents a time in my life. The death of my father, the birth of my daughter, the loss of a friend… each one is a rare gem, all are priceless and so it goes with my books in my memory.
Every time a book is a bestseller, it’s a thrill. I was honoured to write and direct Big Stone Gap into a major motion picture, and would like to do more movies and television series based on my books.
Readers sustain me because, as it goes in life, I’m a girl’s girl, a sister, a cousin, a friend. Around
the world, families are the same – our struggles, needs and hopes are pretty much the same. We want to feel productive. We want to feel safe. We hope to lift our weary spirits with art – that includes reading good books and experiencing dramatic forms where we gather in community to hear stories told by actors or played through by musicians on instruments.
My work is dedicated to telling the stories of people who survive by the labour of their own hands. Those who risk everything when they fall in love, and find courage when fate deals them a bad hand. I live to serve my readers. Their reactions fuel my ambition.