Steve Wingate makes his first trip to the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute to learn how books make their way into the hands of booksellers, and thereby into the hands of readers.
“I think all honest, literary effort reflects the fact that we humans are imprisoned by our cultures. It isn’t so much getting the internal conflict onto the page, it is letting it come out.”
“Imagine two thousand people reading your interactive novel and each having completely unique story experiences. To me it sounded like the future—and I, as a writer who believes in exploring new storytelling tools, wanted a piece of it.” Returning to his “Quotes & Notes” series, Steven Wingate explores the pleasures and pitfalls of writing interactive fiction.
“So in the novel I’m driving at the idea that justice and freedom don’t wait. It’s not, well, you need to suffer just a little more and then things are going to be peachy in fifty years. No. That was the rationale for colonialism and you can see the wreckage that left behind.”
“My overall feeling is that it likely took a lot of energy just to keep track of what was going on around me at home—to make sure everyone was okay and the day wasn’t going to veer off into territory that felt fraught and unstable.” Paula Saunders talks with Steven Wingate about her novel The Distance Home and the winner-take-all emotional violence that underpins America.
“The great pleasure of reading is to be able to fill in and anticipate, and I want to provide that pleasure to my readers as well”: Adrian Koesters talks with Steven Wingate about Baltimore in the 1950s and writing her debut novel, Union Square.
“Twenty-five years ago, serious writers in Idaho were denying the [regional] label in any way they could. Today the climate has changed. One of my students complained, ‘You’re from Montana. I’m just from New Jersey and I have nothing to write about.’” Mary Clearman Blew talks with Steven Wingate about writing the West and her new novel, Ruby Dreams of Janis Joplin.
“From the novel’s outset, Indian Horse announces itself as the story of a generation, not merely of a single individual’s life”: Steven Wingate on Richard Wagamese’s final novel.
“I tell my students to focus on developing aspects of their characters that they don’t share”: Neil Connelly talks with Steven Wingate about presses tiny and huge, teaching in MFA programs, and his new collection, In the Wake of Our Vows.
“Is it possible for us to solve a problem our ancestors struggled with and by doing so liberate not only ourselves but also them, retroactively, and allow them repose as well? Reversing the direction of time’s arrow was an idea I wanted to explore in this novel.”
