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"Johnson ... interviews 17 female scribes to create 17 miniature instruction books on craft ... [she] also delves into the more mysterious regions of the creative process ... the questions she poses provoke thoughtful responses from her subjects, who have plenty of insight into the work they do ... their enthusiasm for language and faith in the awesome power of revision will be encouraging to any writer at any stage of her career."—Publishers Weekly
Interviews on the craft of writing and the writing life with some of the foremost contemporary American women fiction writers.
Sena Jeter Naslund describes the origins of Ahab’s Wife in "a vision and a voice." Ann Patchett mourns the ways in which the reality of a novel may fail to live up to her conception of it. Andrea Barrett, a winner of the National Book Award and the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, nevertheless characterizes herself as "a very clumsy writer" in her early drafts.
The seventeen women interviewed by Sarah Anne Johnson are some of the most popular and accomplished writers at work today—award winners, critically acclaimed, popular with book clubs. Steeped in a thorough knowledge of each writer’s work, Johnson’s questions range from technical issues of craft to the nurturing of fictional ideas to the daily practice of writing. The authors offer insights into their own works that will delight their fans and also provide practical advice that will be cherished by aspiring writers. From Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s reflections on her experience of immigration to Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s insights on the question of a character’s voice, these interviews combine the personal with the professional experience of the writing life.
"How did you get started writing?" "How do your story ideas come to you?" "Who are some of the writers who have influenced you?" These are a few of the basic questions lobbed to women fiction writers by interviewer Johnson in this lively and revealing collection of author interviews. Naturally, Johnson discusses the specifics of each writer's work, but her emphasis on inspiration and craft unites the collection, and by the time the reader has absorbed all 17 interviews, she or he will have a strong sense of the challenges contemporary women fiction writers face, why they write, what they hope to accomplish, and how the reception of their work does or does not affect their writing process. Johnson's eloquent and giving interviewees include Sue Miller, Andrea Barrett, Jill McKorkle, Ann Patchett, Gish Jen and Sena Jeter Naslund, and her collection will entice and satisfy curious readers, wanna-be writers, and book-club members."—Booklist
"An experienced author interviewer and workshop instructor, [Johnson offers] the reader an opportunity to participate in intimate and often illuminating dialog . . . The emphasis that writing is hard work that can take its toll emotionally serves as a common thread among the conversations as many of these women struggle to balance their writing with work and family obligations . . . Recommended for public and academic libraries."—Library Journal
"Johnson's thoughtful and knowledgeable questions elicit new insights for readers and encouragement for aspiring writers, richly fulfilling her stated goal of supplementing previous interview collections that are either outdated or poorly representative of women's voices."—Bloomsbury Review
Click here for TABLE OF CONTENTS
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SARAH ANNE JOHNSON is a nationally recognized author interviewer and fiction writer with an M.F.A from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her interviews have appeared in The Writer's Chronicle, The Writer, Glimmer Train Stories and are forthcoming in The Harvard Review. Her fiction has appeared in Other Voices and George Jr. She works as the Program Coordinator for the YMCA National Writer’s Voice program, and teaches The Art of the Author Interview nationwide. She lives in Truro, MA. http://www.sarahannejohnson.com
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