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CBS News
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Anne Tyler on a writer's "selfish motive" to explore other lives
Novelist Anne Tyler was once described as a writer who likes to break America's heart. "Oh, dear! Well, don't you think life kind of breaks your heart?" she said. Stories about life breaking your heart, and how love can sometimes mend it, have made Tyler a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, and a best-selling author for six decades. In 1977, she told The New York Times, "It does matter to me that I be considered a serious writer. …. A serious book is one that removes me to another life as I am reading it. … It has to be an extremely believable lie." "I don't remember saying that, but I believe every word of it still!" she laughed. "The fact that it's a lie is a very important part of what makes it not real life, don't worry! And the fact that it's a believable lie makes you say, I am actually being another person right now." The people who live in Tyler's two dozen books have touched countless readers: "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant," "Breathing Lessons," "A Spool of Blue Thread," and "The Accidental Tourist," which became a critically-acclaimed film with William Hurt as a travel writer who hates to travel, and Geena Davis, who won an Oscar for playing the woman who shows him that love is possible for those willing to take a chance. Bestselling author Anne Tyler. Her latest novel is "Three Days in June." CBS News Tyler said, "What makes me keep going as a writer is a more selfish motive, which is, I'm just always wanting to know what it's like to be somebody else. … I feel almost deprived that I have just this one life; I have to be greedy and reach out and see, Well, that guy I just passed in the street, he said that strang thing, what is it like to be him? It's just self-indulgence to sit and write all day and pretend I'm somebody else." "I love listening to people" Tyler grew up in a quiet Quaker community in North Carolina. She would tell herself stories to fall asleep at night: "I would fold my knees up and that would be my desk, and I would be a doctor seeing patients, and I would whisper these conversations. And it always ended with my brother in the bed across the room shouting out, 'Mama, Anne's whispering again!'" Something her readers have long heard about, but never seen: her "blue box," full of hand-written notes to herself. I asked, "Is it fun for you to page through the blue box and go, 'Oh, I forgot I thought about that'?" "Yes," she said. "But we should never page through it too often, because then it won't be surprising." CBS News The box is filled with ideas and snippets of conversations overheard in grocery stores or coffee shops that she might slip into a book. "I love listening to people; I like to hear them nattering on," she said. "That's why the pandemic hit my writing career very hard! Because I love to just be walking down the street and you hear somebody say two words, as I go on, I think, I wonder what that was about? And that's where stories begin." No place is more associated with Tyler than Baltimore, Maryland. It's where she and her late husband, Iranian novelist and psychiatrist Taghi Modarressi, raised their two daughters. So, why does she keep returning to Baltimore as a setting for her stories? "Laziness," she mused. "You seem to have a love for the setting," I said. "But face the fact that if I wrote about somebody in New York, I'd have to find out a bunch of things about New York," Tyler said. "And here I am! But I don't know why it is that I feel there's sort of more there there in the average Baltimorean than there are in people in other places." "I'm going to be writing this [next] book forever" Knopf Tyler's latest book, "Three Days in June," details a long weekend in the life of a school administrator, bookended by the loss of her job and her daughter's wedding. At one point the book's main character, Gail, says, "I'm not the kind of woman who dreams of doing things." I asked Tyler, "If you could pretend to be anybody, why choose the assistant headmistress at a school in Baltimore, versus a movie star or a head of state?" "You think that's bad – the current thing I'm working on, the guy remodels kitchens for a living," Tyler replied. "I don't know! I've often asked myself, if I want to be somebody else, why not somebody heroic and crusading out in the world? But I don't get to choose. I always say novels are like olives in one of those tall, thin bottles. You just get out an olive that's on top. This is the one that comes next." But the lives of her characters, and the jobs they have, are anything but humdrum. "And there is a beauty in the acceptance that people have over their own lives," I said. "Sometimes people just end up in a place like Baltimore." "They make a life there!" she laughed. Now, at age 83, Anne Tyler says she'll keep doing what she has always done: listen, think, and write about people who might shatter your heart, or stitch it back together. Asked how many more books we might expect from her, Tyler replied, "Well, I'm going to be writing this [next] book forever, and when I finish it, if I do finish it before I die, I will rewrite it. And if I'm still not dead, I will rewrite it again, because I'm not going to bring out another book. I'm horrified that I have 25 books in a list in the front of this latest novel." "Isn't that a joy, Anne? Twenty-five books?" I asked. "No!" she said. "My next-door neighbor many years ago said, 'You do churn them out, don't you?'" "That comment clearly lingers in your mind." "It's engraved there, yes!" she laughed. READ AN EXCERPT: "Three Days in June" by Anne Tyler WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with Anne Tyler For more info: Story produced by Ed Forgotson. Editor: Ed Givnish.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
5 Academy Award-nominated movies filmed in the Coastal Empire and Lowcountry
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) — The 97th Academy Awards are just a few days away, and throughout history several movies have taken the Coastal Empire and Lowcountry to 'Oscar night.' Here are five Academy Award-nominated films that were photographed in the Coastal Empire and Lowcountry. 'The Big Chill', a drama about a group of students reuniting for a friend's funeral at the Tidalholm Plantation, was shot in Beaufort, S.C. The movie starred William Hurt and saw breakout performances by Glenn Close and Jeff Goldblum. Nominated for three Academy Awards at the 1984 ceremony, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Close) and Best Original Screenplay. The film lost the top prize to 'Terms of Endearment'. This mystery drama about an actress traveling to Savannah to study the behavior of a real-life controversial figure she will portray in a movie was filmed entirely in the Hostess City. The film was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 2024 Academy Awards ceremony, losing to French legal thriller 'Anatomy of a Fall'. Based on the novel by Pat Conroy, this Robert Duvall-led drama in between wartimes is set in Beaufort. Tidalholm again serves as a centerpiece, and other filming locations include the Marine Corps Air Station and the Depot in Parris Island. The film was nominated for two awards at the 1980 ceremony, Best Actor (Duvall) and Best Supporting Actor (Michael O'Keefe). Perhaps the most successful and recognizable of Savannah-centric films, one memorable scene from this movie classic was filmed in the Hostess City. The hallmark bus stop scene, which sets the framework for the story, was filmed at Chippewa Square. Today, the bench sits on display in the Savannah History Museum, and Chippewa Square continues to see tourists by the thousands each year who flock to the site. 'Forrest Gump' won a sweeping six statues at the 1995 Academy Awards ceremony, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Visual Effects and Best Film Editing. In addition, the movie was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Makeup, Best Original Score and Best Sound. This drama about the race between the two auto moguls saw filming locations in Statesboro and Savannah. Racing scenes were shot on Highway 46 in Statesboro, while Savannah served as a stand-in for Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans. The film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Sound Mixing, and won two Academy Awards in the categories of Best Editing and Best Sound Editing. Over 100 SCAD alumni, students worked on Academy Award nominated films Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
