Interview with Barbara Kent Lawrence

Barbara Kent Lawrence is a Potomac Alum who has published various fiction and nonfiction novels, including her memoir Bitter Ice. 

“I think life is kind of like that… you really don’t know what you’re gonna hit, who you’re gonna meet, who is going to influence you… so I think the main thing is that you have to work very hard at it. ”

“The process is organic, it grows out of you, but it also grows out of everything in your environment, everybody you’ve ever known, every book you’ve ever read. Because you really don’t know where inspiration is going to come from.”

“One of the things that bothers me about nonfiction is that there is always a hidden agenda, there is always a perspective, and there is always a warping of truth, because what is truth? Truth is what the five of us here see as truth. How is anything that is supposed to be nonfiction in fact nonfiction, because it comes through the prism of ourselves which distorts the result. So in some ways a novel is more honest because you’re not pretending that any of it is true.
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