J. Dylan Yates

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J. Dylan Yates

Goodreads Author


Born
Boston, The United States
Website

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Influences
When writing, I'm inspired by a variety of elements. THE BELIEF IN Ang ...more

Member Since
January 2012

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Raised on a tiny, New England peninsula, J. Dylan Yates graduated with a BFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

THE BELIEF IN Angels, Yates's debut novel, was written over the course of many years while she worked several BFA-related jobs, including waitressing, teaching, corporate training, real estate, nursing, interior design, directing, acting, library science, parenting, and reluctant housewifery.

Yates’s next novel in this series, SZAJA'S STORY, focused on the character created in THE BELIEF IN Angels, details Szaja's harrowing journey to America from the Ukrainian orchards of his childhood, the desperate Ukrainian refugee work camps of the ’20s, his amazing survival of both the Majdanek death camp and the torpedoing of refuge
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J. Dylan Yates A disciplined approach to my writing is key. My routine is as follows:

1.) Carve two writing days a week from civilian work.
2.) Sit at desk by 7AM wit…more
A disciplined approach to my writing is key. My routine is as follows:

1.) Carve two writing days a week from civilian work.
2.) Sit at desk by 7AM with coffee, (an entirely new, bad habit acquired after reading about dementia and coffee’s ability to prevent the disease).
3.) Stick to a maximum 1 hour-internet business.
4.) Allow a maximum of 15 minutes of internet play in the morning.
5.) Allow another ½ hour for pretending you’re not playing on the internet.
6.) Must have at least 500 words on the page by 11 or take a walk around the neighborhood and study strangers.
7.) If all goes well, don’t stop writing. Don’t answer the phone or the door or cat. Sit and write and lose time until the light fades or you notice your stomach grumbling.
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J. Dylan Yates Readers who read my book and tell me they have enjoyed and been inspired by it!
Average rating: 4.13 · 154 ratings · 65 reviews · 1 distinct workSimilar authors
The Belief in Angels

4.13 avg rating — 154 ratings — published 2014 — 13 editions
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Launching THE BELIEF IN ANGELS (She Writes Press, 2014)

I like the use of the word and the analogy of the book “launch”. Boats figure prominently in my book. As a matter of fact, the entire publishing process has been like driving a boat.

For a very long time, I was the captain, driving my own boat. At first slowly—gaining my sea legs, learning to read the maps and then charting my own course. It was not a launch. It was a reconnaissance mission. I wou Read more of this blog post »
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Published on August 23, 2014 16:18 Tags: boats, book-launch, first-book, j-dylan-yates, new-beginnings, the-belief-in-angels
Quotes by J. Dylan Yates  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“Last night I dreamt Moses and I were rowing underwater.
We could breathe and talk to one another.
We rowed past schools of fish and sea anemones and Moses named them for me.”
—Jules Finn”
J. Dylan Yates, The Belief in Angels

“The ambulance guy sticks a plastic cup on my face and tells me it will help me breathe easier. It smells like new Barbies.”
J. Dylan Yates, THE BELIEF IN Angels

“the mother I imagined out of “Beaver Cleaver-land.”
J. Dylan Yates, THE BELIEF IN Angels

Topics Mentioning This Author

“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again.

That is their mystery and their magic.”
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
Toni Morrison

“When I am dead, and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain drenched hair,
Tho you should lean above me broken hearted,
I shall not care.
For I shall have peace.
As leafey trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough.
And I shall be more silent and cold hearted
Than you are now”
Sara Teasdale

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Elizabeth Appell

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
Madeleine L'Engle

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