Writing For Your Life #3 (Writing for Your Life No. 3) - Hardcover

9780916366292: Writing For Your Life #3 (Writing for Your Life No. 3)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0916366294 ISBN 13: 9780916366292

Publisher: Pushcart Press, 1997

In a new compilation of interviews with celebrated authors, John Updike, Thomas Keneally, Doris Lessing, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rick Bass, Seamus Heaney, Winston Groom, and many other notable writers reflect on the art of writing and the world of publishing.

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Review:

These 55 author interviews originally appeared in the pages of Publishers Weekly when new books were released by the writers who are profiled. Most of the interviews are from 1995 and 1996. Each piece, a mere five or so pages in length, offers a glimpse at the story behind the stories. We see how various authors (A. S. Byatt, Michael Chabon, Roddy Doyle, Ursula Hegi, Jamaica Kincaid, Bill McKibben, E. Annie Proulx, and Salman Rushdie among them) deal with the ways in which real life imposes itself upon the writing life, and vice versa. We learn about the authors' writing philosophies and work habits, and glean an understanding of the vicissitudes of dealing with agents, editors, and publishing houses (the fact that names are named makes it ever more tantalizing). While all of the profiles are too short to be wholly satisfying, the accumulation of viewpoints creates a fascinating sort of collage of the writing and publishing life.

From the Back Cover:

When 92 outstanding contemporary writers talk about the art of writing and the gritty job of publishing, only two descriptions are appropriate: encyclopedic and definitive. A summary of these interviews indicates that there is no simple path to prominence and no easy rule for creation. Every author has an individual and often idiosyncratic history to reveal. And such histories! Here are the voices of Jean Auel, Ann Beattie, Raymond Carver, Tom Clancy, Pat Conroy, Robert Coover, Don DeLillo, Annie Dillard, Umberto Eco, Toni Morrison, Tim O'Brien, Cynthia Ozick, Grace Paley, Philip Roth, Wallace Stegner, Fay Weldon, and scores more. The result is a one-of-a-kind inside look at the writing and publishing process. Every writer and reader will be fascinated by these revelations, as selected from the Publishers Weekly Interview columns.

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