A throughline both here and on your podcast is a sense that it's gotten much harder to do the kind of writing you find valuable within the business model of the modern publishing industry. Would you mind talking a bit about the strategies you've found, both in your own practice and in the work of others, for telling individual stories in the face of an industry that's grown to oppose, or at least constrain, that impulse?
Here's the one that's been bugging me since, oh, January 2018: what does it take to turn a short story into a longer form, like perhaps a moment that could anchor a novella?
Should authors attempt to map out a story before the real writing begins? Is that a useful approach? Or perhaps one relative to the scope and scale of the story itself? Also, miscellaneous question: What are your feelings on Cormac McCarthy?
Chekhov's stories are phenomenal. So much greatness there.
One of the most interesting adaptations of one of his short stories albeit lesser know is a movie from the South Indian state of Kerala called Ottal. It's a beautiful film based ion his story "Vanka" (not Uncle Vanya) It is beautifully shot and devastating...
What would you recommend to someone who has never written fiction, but is interested in writing for their own enjoyment and doesn't know where the hell to start.
What recent trends in literary fiction (particularly in the US) do you find most misguided or personally unappealing? Are there any writers in particular whom you think are guilty of popularizing these trends?
A throughline both here and on your podcast is a sense that it's gotten much harder to do the kind of writing you find valuable within the business model of the modern publishing industry. Would you mind talking a bit about the strategies you've found, both in your own practice and in the work of others, for telling individual stories in the face of an industry that's grown to oppose, or at least constrain, that impulse?
Here's the one that's been bugging me since, oh, January 2018: what does it take to turn a short story into a longer form, like perhaps a moment that could anchor a novella?
Should authors attempt to map out a story before the real writing begins? Is that a useful approach? Or perhaps one relative to the scope and scale of the story itself? Also, miscellaneous question: What are your feelings on Cormac McCarthy?
Chekhov's stories are phenomenal. So much greatness there.
One of the most interesting adaptations of one of his short stories albeit lesser know is a movie from the South Indian state of Kerala called Ottal. It's a beautiful film based ion his story "Vanka" (not Uncle Vanya) It is beautifully shot and devastating...
What would you recommend to someone who has never written fiction, but is interested in writing for their own enjoyment and doesn't know where the hell to start.
What recent trends in literary fiction (particularly in the US) do you find most misguided or personally unappealing? Are there any writers in particular whom you think are guilty of popularizing these trends?
What are your thoughts about writing while drunk?
how do writers come up with names for characters?
Of course there is a gun in "Gooseberries"! And it most certainly does go off.
The gun in that story is the rain, "which never comes." And then in the end it does come.