Author Inspo - Brit Bennett

I’m back, friends! It’s been a long few months, but I hope to start posting more regularly again (which involves starting to read more regularly again…wish me luck). Since I’m trying to get back into the practice of reading, I figured it would be a great time to revisit my Author Inspo series to explore what inspires one of my absolute favorite authors: Brit Bennett. I regularly say that I would read a grocery list if Brit Bennett wrote it, because she uses the English language in a way that few people do - masterfully, lyrically, beautifully. I. Am. Obsessed with her work.

For those who don’t know, Bennett has two novels (though she’s also an accomplished essayist): her debut, The Mothers*, and its follow up, The Vanishing Half. Both are subject of wide acclaim. So, that of course begs the question - who and what inspires Brit Bennett?

As is true of most incredible authors, Bennett is an avid reader. Amongst her favorites? Toni Morrison’s The Song of Solomon and Dorothy Allison’s Cavedweller. (Of Allison, Bennett says, “Dorothy Allison should be a household name – her work is so searing and beautiful.”) Check out the full list of her favorites here. How many have you read? I, for one, have read two on this list, but the rest will be jumping ahead on my never-ending TBR, now that I know they have Bennett’s approval.

She cites Toni Morrison as her “favorite writer of all time.”

About her writing process, she says:

I think I had to learn that writing is more than your word count. I had plenty of those frustrating days where you write all morning just to realize it wasn’t working and I needed to delete everything. At first, those felt like wasted days, but I had to learn to realize that invisible work is real work. Learning what story you don’t want to tell is as important as learning which one you want to tell. You have to teach yourself how to tell the story and a lot of that teaching happened in these pages of writing that nobody but me will ever see.

As for the inspiration for her work, Bennett cites her mother and her mother’s upbringing for inspiring the plot of The Vanishing Half, while her own experiences provided a foundation for The Mothers.

Which Bennett novel is your favorite? Share below!

Works Cited

“Brit Bennett’s Top 10 Favorite Books (10 Books).” Www.goodreads.com,

www.goodreads.com/list/show/114694.Brit_Bennett_s_Top_10_Favorite_Books_.

Accessed 5 Mar. 2023.

Prize Admin. “Brit Bennett: Questions on Writing and Creativity.” Women’s Prize for Fiction, 19 Apr. 2021,

womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/features/features/interviews/brit-bennett-on-writing-inspiratio

n-and-creativity. Accessed 5 Mar. 2023.

McCormick, Chris. “Writing Is More than Your Word Count: An Interview with Brit Bennett.”

Fiction Writers Review,

fictionwritersreview.com/interview/writing-is-more-than-your-word-count-an-interview-with

-brit-bennett/. Accessed 5 Mar. 2023.

George, Lynell. “Her Mom Inspired Her Book on Race and Identity. Then Came the Hollywood

Bidding War.” Los Angeles Times, 12 Aug. 2020,

www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-08-12/vanishing-half-brit-bennett-

book-club#:~:text=Her%20mom%20inspired%20her%20book. Accessed 5 Mar. 2023.

Alter, Alexandra. ““The Mothers,” a Debut Novel, Is Already Creating a Stir.” The New York

Times, 9 Oct. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/books/the-mothers-brit-bennett.html.

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