Andrew Peterson has an author interview with the people for Excellence in Faith-Driven Literature. He talks about not having an agenda as an author and allowing the story to build naturally.
Category Archives: Authors
Interview with Paris Review's Lorin Stein
Sampsonia Way has a great interview with the new editor of The Paris Review, Lorin Stein. They talk about the many submissions The Paris Review people read and a little about the author interviews the journal is famous for. They actually had an author reject an interview request recently–someone you may have had on the radio.
"Speak the speech, I pray thee, trippingly on the tongue…"
I fell down in my obligation to link to yesterday’s stop on the Virtual Book Tour. But dry your tears—it’s right here, at Review From Here. (Can’t seem to find a permalink; if you’re reading this after time has passed, you may have to scroll down or search.)
Today’s stop is at The Story Behind the Book.
Joe Carter at The Evangelical Outpost links to a story, and posts a couple video clips, concerning the first American attempt to produce a Shakespeare play in the original accents of Shakespeare’s time. The point of the exercise seems to be, mainly, to demonstrate how much better the poetry rhymed back when it was written. Continue reading "Speak the speech, I pray thee, trippingly on the tongue…"
Don't Ask, Sweetheart
Lars’ next tour stop will be on The Hot Author Report today. Stop laughing. That’s not what they meant.
And on Monday, he’s has an interview on Examiner: Virginia Beach. Here’s another post from that blog on what not to ask an author at a book signing. I think there could be more to it than this. I mean if someone asked me where I got my ideas, I’d say the morgue. I steal them from dead people. Now, that was a painless answer, wasn’t it?
The Grace of Living
Andrew Peterson is writing about imagination and George MacDonald at The Rabbit Room.
Buechner said, “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and the pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”
It isn’t saving grace, as some would have it, but it is divine grace for all who breathe. God is so good to us, which may be why god and good are so close in English.
Peterson has two more parts to his posts on imagination.
Shop Talk: Crime, Class, and Money
Thomas Mullen, author of The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, interviews Jess Walter, author of Citizen Vince and The Zero,. Walter says, “Real, organic-seeming characters can illuminate any event—whether it’s timely, the way I’ve worked recently, or steeped in history, like your novels. I like what Emerson said: ‘Fiction reveals the truth that reality obscures.'”
Then Mullen asks about the blend of literary and crime fiction, and then he brings up class descriptions . . . read more.
When in Doubt, Talk About Writing
Bob Thompson says there are three common reports written from interviews with writers, but if you talk to them about writing, you can usually avoid producing what everyone else does. [via Books, Inq.]
5Q: Jonathan Rogers
Mr. Smith has Five Questions For Jonathan Rogers, Author of The Charlatan’s Boy.
SD–Fact: The Wilderking Books are gold for children (and adults) on many fronts. Truth? Check. Goodness, Beauty? Check, check. Were you inspired to write the trilogy by any concern over a lack of worthwhile fiction for kids, or was your motivation simply to make billions of dollars?
JR–I wouldn’t say any ‘concern’ about existing children’s fiction motivated me. I was quite ignorant of what was out there when I started writing the Wilderking books. I’m only a little less ignorant now. I will say I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much worthwhile fiction is out there–though there is plenty that isn’t worthwhile. Here’s the thing, S.D.: I want people to like what I like. I think that’s a good enough reason to write stories. . . .
Daughter of Feminist Author Suffered Growing Up
I don’t have any respect for The Color Purple, and now I have less respect for Alice Walker, but it’s good for some people to give themselves up as examples of bad ideology. Walker’s daughter, Rebecca, writes about how hard it was to live with a neglectful mother.
My mother would always do what she wanted – for example taking off to Greece for two months in the summer, leaving me with relatives when I was a teenager. Is that independent, or just plain selfish?
I was 16 when I found a now-famous poem she wrote comparing me to various calamities that struck and impeded the lives of other women writers. Virginia Woolf was mentally ill and the Brontes died prematurely. My mother had me – a ‘delightful distraction’, but a calamity nevertheless. I found that a huge shock and very upsetting.
According to the strident feminist ideology of the Seventies, women were sisters first, and my mother chose to see me as a sister rather than a daughter. From the age of 13, I spent days at a time alone while my mother retreated to her writing studio – some 100 miles away. I was left with money to buy my own meals and lived on a diet of fast food.
Childhood and Creativity
Radio’s “To the Best of Our Knowledge” had a good show yesterday on children’s fiction and the weight of the past on a few writers. This is a good show, if you haven’t heard it before.