Maya Angelou 1988 · Winston-Salem
Leave for the hotel
06:00 · Start only
“leave my home at six”
Short verbatim excerpt · Maya Angelou · interview by George Plimpton
Open the original for the surrounding passage.
Interview describing writing habitsOpen
The Art of Fiction No. 119
The Paris Review 116 · Fall 1990 · based on their 1988 conversation at 92Y
Questions about starting a working day and revising
Passage: Starting a working day
Timing & context
A note on this hour
Departure time; the journey’s duration is unspecified.
Writing habits described in her late-1980s interview · Self-reported routine
Her hotel-writing routine, with variable finishing hours. Evening revision could also follow dinner; no bedtime is supplied.
1988 is the year of the conversation underlying the 1990 interview, according to The Paris Review’s 2017 retrospective. Its introduction places her home in Winston-Salem; the hotel-room habits she describes were practiced in several towns.
The Paris Review · dating the conversation ↗