Bestselling author and screenwriter Delia Ephron's most recent novel is Siracusa now being adapted into a feature film. Her other novels include The Lion Is In and Hanging Up. She has written humor books for all ages, including How to Eat Like a Child and Do I Have to Say Hello?; and nonfiction, most recently Sister Mother Husband Dog (etc.). Her films include You've Got Mail, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Hanging Up (based on her novel), and Michael. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. Her hit play Love, Loss, and What I Wore (co-written with Nora Ephron) ran for more than two years off-Broadway and has been performed all over the world. She lives in New York City.

DELIA EPHRON

My mother had very powerful attitudes that she really gifted to Nora in a very extreme way. We were all talented, we all had ambition, but they were so successful, and then Nora was so successful, so I did not become a writer until I was in my early thirties, and I thought–This is really what I'm meant to do. Well, you know, the thing about your twenties is that you can just throw it away and think that you have all the time in the world, and then you hit 30, and I realized, Oh, I only have one life and I better do what I'm meant to do.

And then my sister Amy became a writer in her late 30s like almost 40. And Hallie didn't start until 50! And she's published a ton of mysteries. So, all of us, each of us had a bigger mountain to climb, but all of us became published writers.
It was really about... my mother had us take English, no science, no art, just everything to do with history and English. She was the most controlling woman, really… When you're meant to be a writer, these things all impact your talent, so I've always felt the good part of that, there's no really good part to having parents like that, but writers can take stuff that happened to them and make something out of it. And I know that I got this ability to go back and forth between sadness and happiness within one piece of work, and I think that's because when I was eleven my life had, really forever after eleven, it just changed what my talent was from sunny to both sunny and painful, that I can combine them. So the great thing about being a writer is you can take the pain of your life and make something out of it. And you can mix it up with the happier parts and make something even better out of it. I mean, it's kind of all these things end up being gifts when you're older.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Alex Barnett. Digital Media Coordinator is Yu Young Lee. 

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process.