What Drives My Writing
Thank you for your interest in my writing.
I am Serbian American. When I emigrated from Belgrade, it was still Yugoslavia, a wonderful country in many respects. Even though the violent breakup of the former six republics into separate statehoods happened over thirty years ago, I still have difficulty grasping the violence and disappearance of a broader identity.
Everything that I write, whether fiction or non-fiction, I write with the following two mottoes in mind, “Know thyself” and “Know your home to love it better” while processing what happened in Yugoslavia.
Fiction
In my fiction writing, I try to answer my own questions about what it would be like to be a specific person in a specific circumstance. I believe that humans are built on emotions and my writing focuses on that visceral aspect we share. It fascinates me to think about how our senses run off from our supposedly reason-driven beings and self-reflecting minds. I wonder what force from within takes us along a life’s path that would not have been our path had we had other life experiences.
It equally fascinates me to think about our almost incomprehensible willpower. One of the most breathtaking descriptions of a person I have ever heard was about Michael Collins, an Irish revolutionary who lived through literal hell to free his country. In 1921 he came to London as a delegate to negotiate the freedom of Ireland – the mission that was arguably the greatest of his life. After the negotiations in which he failed to secure a truly free Ireland, an Englishmen on the other side of the table said that he had never witnessed such “passion and pain in restraint,” referring to Collins.
It is transfixing to me to think about how a person such as “explosive” Collins, as he was most described, brought himself to such level of self-control in such critical moments. And then to wonder about how a character in my work, or even I myself, would behave in such circumstance.
These are the matters which I try to decipher in my writing with hope of understanding the world around me and myself within it.
Loving Seattle
In my blog called Loving Seattle, I share what I learn and understand about Seattle. I am a die-hard, though naturalized Seattleite. Paradoxically, when the plan to move to Seattle came up, I was heartbroken about it because of Seattle’s legendary dreariness and rain. But then, this town quietly nested itself under my skin and became home. It was a trajectory I would have thought impossible.
I hope that my blog will inspire all its readers to join in a collective devotion to our town. Seattle’s history and present are certainly not exemplary on the wholesale. Still, there is so much good to build upon for an ever-better future Seattle.