I adored [Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna], had previously decided not to pick it up because of bad reviews, then it was shortlisted and I decided to give it a try. And it was amazing– I want to shake the people who didn’t like it and tell them they read it wrong, but that wouldn’t be polite.
Category Archives: Quotes
After you’ve experienced a bit of life
I think that there is a case for saying that you have a bit more to say as you go through life. I mean, obviously there are people who write wonderful books in their early 20s. … But I think those people are the exception. Most of the time, I think one should just let these things mature. It’s no bad thing to start a writing career after you’ve experienced a bit of life.
A storehouse of material and memories
Not every major fiction writer is a natural, but each begins with a storehouse of material and memories that often attenuate over time. Writers in their youth generally have more direct access to childhood, with its freshets of sensation and revelation. What comes later — technical refinement, command of the literary tradition, deeper understanding of the human condition — may yield different results but not always richer or more artful ones.
Of Another Order
Hanna, you ask why Matt would want to see the body in the casket. To me it seemed obvious, but I realize it’s not at all: … for most of Matt’s life, his dad has been absent. So there would be a particularly powerful need to discern that this absence was of another order.
Make up stories
I really wanted it to end at the hate. I have this fantasy that at my own funeral, people should only tell the truth and not make up stories about how I am the kind and charitable person that I am often not. (Anyone else share that?) I always righteously defend British newspapers, which do not observe the American habit of respecting the dead.
It’s as real a form/genre as any
P.S. I’m glad you like my blog. I think I like blogging as much as writing poetry. I know many poets will think that heresy. I always see this sentiment that blogging is a waste of time and we should all get back to the “real work.” But to me it’s as real a form/genre as any: I’m trying to convey ideas artfully. I can do different things on my blog than I can do in a poem, which is why I want both outlets.
Handfeel
[T]he publishing industry is already responding to the digital challenge by making books more “papery”, a turn-on for bibliophiles for whom the tactile pleasures of a book are very much part of the reading experience.
A strong trend among entrants for this year’s Book Design Awards was for jacket and page designs with an artisanal look. In the way that food scientists engineer breakfast cereal and soup for “mouthfeel”, publishers and designers are paying increased attention to texture, weight and “handfeel”.
Bookshop browsers now find themselves tempted by unbleached and hand-cut pages and uncoated jackets. Handwriting or calligraphy feature prominently and images look as if they have been glued in.
This made me laugh. It’s verging on human/book slashfic!
No idea where it would go
[Ian] McEwan was halfway through the story of Michael Beard [Solar] and still had no idea where it would go. Aspiring writers, take note: Even novelists with 13 titles under their belts and shelves full of shiny trophies sometimes flail in the depths. Writing each book, McEwan says, is “like learning to swim all over again.”
Let your work take you by surprise
6. The only way to write fiction that will take someone else by surprise is to let your work take you by surprise too. Get lost. Be scared. Have no idea where you’re headed. All those wrong directions are really right directions because they get you where you want to go.
7. You’ll know you’re at the end when you write something utterly unexpected and surprising to you, and then, when you try to write past it, you can’t. You’ll realize that without saying what you thought you were going to say, you’ve said it.
What they can do
[W]hen people ask me what they can do to get a story collection published, I say this: Buy story collections. Buy every little unmarketed, swindling story collection you see. Let’s change the market.
The Remainder Table 