Barrett Bowlin sits down with Jennifer Pashley over cocktails just before her tour to promote the release of The Scamp, talking with her about this new book, her literary and musical influences, true crime sagas, and, inevitably, dead bodies.
“To be honest, I’d say that in the end the only thing that ultimately matters in story writing is simply trying to create a strong and original narrative, plus always aiming to make every story a little tour de force, which is a what a truly successful short story should be, possessing that intensity—it’s why a story is so much different than a novel and special in a way.”
In Part II, Scott F. Parker considers Kesey’s ties to the “pantheon of writers whose lives threaten to overshadow their work.” What did it mean for Kesey to be “as big as he had it in him to be”?
In Part I, Scott F. Parker meditates on Kesey’s influence in and around Eugene. “Everything I knew about Kesey at the time of his death I’d absorbed from the ether of Eugene,” Parker writes. “Being in Kesey’s general proximity was one of my first moments of thinking The World of Events connected at some points with the world outside my window.”
“Good writers manage to stay curious despite the mind-numbing bullshit that laps upon our adult doorsteps. The kinship to our childhood is that curiosity.”
“Fiction that recognizes the different forms power can take more accurately mirrors the complexity of life”: Peter Turchi on how power dynamics can and should inform conflict in fiction.
Travis Holland on Nicholas Delbanco as a master teacher, as well as Delbanco’s approach to running a writing workshop that matters: “This is good, now let’s make it better.”
“Writing a novel—for me, at least—is like answering a craigslist ad placed by a group of people seeking a roommate. You meet them; you like them; you move in; but within a short period of time, all of them have moved out, and new people have moved in, and these new people, it turns out, are the ones you’re going to live with for the next few years.”
“While one can’t learn the ineffables of writing from the page or a person—voice, innate talent, insightful narrative—one can gain skill sets and learn tools. Like architecture or painting, one’s concept and talent requires more than paper and pen.”
“I wish I were one of those people with very set routines, lovely offices, fresh flowers, yoga poses, no Internet, and so on. But I’m not. I’m the queen of clutter and chaos”: Robin Black talks with Nichole Bernier about hipness, success, and her new novel, Life Drawing.
