Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘writers on writing’

Essays |

That’s Funny

Debra Spark on what’s funny in fiction—and what’s not. “The humor that works in literary fiction, the humor I like, is female. I mean ‘female’ in a pretty stereotypical way here. I don’t mean that the literary work is by women, per se, but that it is relational.”


Interviews |

Fuck Sentimentality: An Interview with Robert Olen Butler

“To love and to express it is to be vulnerable. To create works of art is to be vulnerable, and it’s hard for people to let themselves be vulnerable. Especially in this world, where the internet lets us democratically savage one another, it’s even scarier, but the courage to be an artist means also the courage to love and to express it.” So says Robert Olen Butler in this candid interview with Emily Alford.


Interviews |

Even an Hour is Helpful: an Interview with Ronna Wineberg 

“Many characters in the book deal with unexpected changes in their lives and would welcome facts to guide them. The title seemed to reflect the emotional struggles of the characters and almost implies that it’s simple to change a life. But my characters find that life is complex; what works for one person will not work for another.”


Interviews |

Validation is the Curse: an Interview with Christopher Hebert

“I was more interested in it as a book exploring characters just going about their lives. For me that’s the part of the Rust Belt narrative not often told.”


Interviews |

Architectures like Underground Cities: Part II of an Interview with Julianna Baggott

In Part II of Sebastian Matthews’s five-part interview with Julianna Baggott (who also writes as Bridget Asher and N.E. Bode), the two discuss writing the Pure Trilogy, research and revision.


Interviews |

Architectures like Underground Cities: Part I of an Interview with Julianna Baggott

In Part I of Sebastian Matthews’s five-part interview with Julianna Baggott (who also writes as Bridget Asher and N.E. Bode), the two discuss pseudonyms, writing philosophy and the author-reader relationship.