extramonologue

January 27, 2010

“I think I also gravitate toward writing about young people because I find adults to be much more guarded when they’re being written about. They throw a lot more bullshit at you. I find that writing about teens, in my experience, they’re much more open, much more willing to be themselves. They have fewer facades and there’s less difficulty in getting them to open up.”

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Benoit Denizet-Lewis (via Ypulse)

So true. Writing about teenagers for teenagers is a little different, but this entire interview is an incredible articulation of what makes my job so incredibly fascinating, challenging and rewarding.

(An aside: His newest collection of previously published work, American Voyeur: Dispatches from the Far Reaches of Modern Life, is a great read. If you grew up on Seventeen-style “OMG! This happened to me!” stories, but think you’ve outgrown your thirst for far-fetched and fantastic slices of adolescence, you’re wrong. You’ve just graduated to a more mature exploration of the young, the marginalized and the misunderstood—and the cultural forces that drive them—which is exactly what Denizet-Lewis always delivers.)