Ask the Author: Julie Scolnik
Answered Questions (6)
Julie Scolnik
I cannot for a moment imagine my life in any other field! I have been a musician my whole life.
When I was a child, there was always music filling our home. The gorgeous, poignant records that my mother found for her three daughters became the soundtrack to our childhood, seeped into our DNA, connected us most profoundly as sisters, and very likely influenced the direction of our careers.
Ballet was my first love, but I realized at the tender age of 13 that it was my emotional response to music that made me crave a physical outlet for the deep stirrings it evoked. So off I went to spend three idyllic summers at a music camp in Maine, where Beethoven and Brahms symphonies were broadcast through loud speakers to awaken us in our woodland cabins, as if the trees had burst into song.
I connected deeply with these young peers of mine, each day listening to friends rehearse the Schubert Cello Quintet in the woods before lunch. When I played the recording at home after camp was over, my eyes filled with tears. And then I knew: Music would become my life.
I think that the (slightly urgent) desire to tell a story in writing probably comes from the same place as the desire to share a piece of music in a live performance. I recently discovered a beautiful quote from Maya Angelou, and I feel it encapsulates this same urgency to share art, whether it is a writer’s story or a piece that a musician yearns to perform: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
When I was a child, there was always music filling our home. The gorgeous, poignant records that my mother found for her three daughters became the soundtrack to our childhood, seeped into our DNA, connected us most profoundly as sisters, and very likely influenced the direction of our careers.
Ballet was my first love, but I realized at the tender age of 13 that it was my emotional response to music that made me crave a physical outlet for the deep stirrings it evoked. So off I went to spend three idyllic summers at a music camp in Maine, where Beethoven and Brahms symphonies were broadcast through loud speakers to awaken us in our woodland cabins, as if the trees had burst into song.
I connected deeply with these young peers of mine, each day listening to friends rehearse the Schubert Cello Quintet in the woods before lunch. When I played the recording at home after camp was over, my eyes filled with tears. And then I knew: Music would become my life.
I think that the (slightly urgent) desire to tell a story in writing probably comes from the same place as the desire to share a piece of music in a live performance. I recently discovered a beautiful quote from Maya Angelou, and I feel it encapsulates this same urgency to share art, whether it is a writer’s story or a piece that a musician yearns to perform: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
Julie Scolnik
Hello Lilyyy!
I never "decided" to become an author! For over forty years I knew I had a story that one day I would have to tell. It took me decades to finally find its truest form but I am thrilled beyond words that I am finally sharing it with the world.
I have always enjoyed telling stories, personal true stories, but I also learned that a memoir is a universal truth as illustrated by a personal story. Once I figured out my truth and my title, I knew I had found my book.
I never "decided" to become an author! For over forty years I knew I had a story that one day I would have to tell. It took me decades to finally find its truest form but I am thrilled beyond words that I am finally sharing it with the world.
I have always enjoyed telling stories, personal true stories, but I also learned that a memoir is a universal truth as illustrated by a personal story. Once I figured out my truth and my title, I knew I had found my book.
Julie Scolnik
My routine is not like other writers.' I wrote the bulk of my story decades ago when I needed to get the details down. When I returned to it over the last 20-30 years, I was dying to see it evolve. There was no writer's block.
Julie Scolnik
Write your own story, what you know.
Julie Scolnik
None of these questions really apply to me and this book. I am a musician and this book is my one and only. At least so far. But I don't think of myself as a writer.:)
Julie Scolnik
This is a true story that has been lingering in the corridors of my psyche for four decades, and I always knew that one day I would have to tell it.
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