Michael Ventura
Michael Ventura is a novelist, screenwriter, and essayist whose “Letters at 3 AM” column appeared in The Austin Chronicle from 1993 to 2014. He’s written three novels and four books of nonfiction and directed a documentary about filmmaker John Cassavetes.
— From July 2016The Talent Of The Room
Writing is something you do alone in a room. Copy that sentence and put it on your wall because there’s no way to exaggerate or overemphasize this fact.
January 1994The Witness Tree: Memoir Of A Ritual
It is a terrible thing when a brave person becomes afraid of you. It wakes you up. You see that, in Hemingway’s great phrase, you have “gone beyond where you can go.” It is unlikely you can save yourself, and unlikely that any one person — lover, therapist, friend — can save you.
February 1992A Dance For Your Life In The Marriage Zone
Marriage is the most dangerous form of love. Count the casualties and you know. It turns many people to stone. We all have seen that. Our society is cracking under the weight of many stone-lives. We all know that. But will we, or will we not, discover all that a man and woman can be? Marriage is not the answer, but it is the most demanding way to live the question.
April 1988
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