Hello everyone! 
I'm not sure if this is the best place for this thread, but I wanted to let you know about an excellent series of in-depth interviews with some of the greatest writers in the world. The series is called The Art of Fiction, in the Paris Review, and I have spent the last few days devouring interviews with some of my favourite writers - Toni Morrison, Anthony Burgess, Iris Murdoch, A.S. Byatt, Evelyn Waugh, Don DeLillo... An incredible storehouse of knowledge and advice from wonderful writers!
The interviews are long - if you are reading them carefully you would need an hour or more to get through some of them. I often have to spend several evenings on each one, putting aside half an hour or so every night. The interviews cover the writer's working methods and have plenty of tips and advice, but there is much more to them than that. They discuss the writer's views on fiction generally and they talk about specific books, what they were aiming for when they wrote them and how they view them after a few years have passed, etc. There is so much insight there for aspiring writers, and it is fascinating to hear your favourite authors talk at such length an in such detail!
I just finished reading the Toni Morrison interview this morning. It included little nuggets of wisdom like, 'It is not "this is what I believe," because that would not be a book, just a tract. A book is "this may be what I believe, but suppose I am wrong... what could it be?"', and "Doing it wrong isn't bad, but doing it wrong and thinking you've done it right is."
The Toni Morrison interview can be found here - https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1888/toni-morrison-the-art-of-fiction-no-134-toni-morrison
An index of all the interviews is here - https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/author/A-C
The interviews are all free to read.
Happy reading!
I'm not sure if this is the best place for this thread, but I wanted to let you know about an excellent series of in-depth interviews with some of the greatest writers in the world. The series is called The Art of Fiction, in the Paris Review, and I have spent the last few days devouring interviews with some of my favourite writers - Toni Morrison, Anthony Burgess, Iris Murdoch, A.S. Byatt, Evelyn Waugh, Don DeLillo... An incredible storehouse of knowledge and advice from wonderful writers!
The interviews are long - if you are reading them carefully you would need an hour or more to get through some of them. I often have to spend several evenings on each one, putting aside half an hour or so every night. The interviews cover the writer's working methods and have plenty of tips and advice, but there is much more to them than that. They discuss the writer's views on fiction generally and they talk about specific books, what they were aiming for when they wrote them and how they view them after a few years have passed, etc. There is so much insight there for aspiring writers, and it is fascinating to hear your favourite authors talk at such length an in such detail!
I just finished reading the Toni Morrison interview this morning. It included little nuggets of wisdom like, 'It is not "this is what I believe," because that would not be a book, just a tract. A book is "this may be what I believe, but suppose I am wrong... what could it be?"', and "Doing it wrong isn't bad, but doing it wrong and thinking you've done it right is."
The Toni Morrison interview can be found here - https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1888/toni-morrison-the-art-of-fiction-no-134-toni-morrison
An index of all the interviews is here - https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/author/A-C
The interviews are all free to read.
Happy reading!
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