Book

Off the page : writers talk about beginnings, endings, and everything in between / edited by Carole Burns, introduction by Marie Arana.

1st ed.

New York : W.W. Norton, ©2008.

231 pages ; 21 cm

"Writer Carole Burns has put together a book about writing and the writing life, featuring forty-three of our foremost contemporary authors. Reading Off the Page can feel like being at a dinner party with a Pulitzer Prize winner on one side and your favorite detective writer on the other as the third bottle of wine is opened and everyone is beginning to relax." "In interviews on washingtonpost.com, Burns has gotten to the heart of writing by asking such questions as: Can good sex be written? Martin Amis doesn't think so. Are characters based on people the authors know? Richard Ford says no; Russell Banks says sometimes. Did you ever have doubts about your writing? Absolutely, says Michael Cunningham." "These and other authors - including Edward P. Jones, Jhumpa Lahiri, Marisha Pessl, Walter Mosley, Margot Livesy, and Alice McDermott - talk honestly and forthrightly about the art of fiction."--Jacket.

Authors, American -- 20th century -- Interviews.

Authors, English -- 20th century -- Interviews.

Fiction -- Authorship.

Interviews.

Burns, Carole, 1964-

Arana, Marie.

In the beginning was ... (A) the word, (B) bunch of words, (C) not a single damned word -- Haven't I seen you somewhere before? : how characters come to life -- What's it all about? : ideas behind the stories -- Truth or dare? : changing facts to make a story more real -- Home is where the art is : how writers are influenced by place -- All that jazz : playing with language and style to suit the story -- Long and short of it : differences between writing novels and writing short stories -- Lovers and other strangers : sex and love in literature -- If at first you don't succeed ... revise, revise again -- Are we there yet? : knowing when a novel or story is finished -- Writing life : springs of hope, winters of despair -- Musing about the muse : how writers find inspiration when it doesn't find them -- Who reads this stuff? : how writers think about audience and reviewers -- Good writers borrow, great writers steal : writers whom writers love, and why -- I knew him when ... when writers realized they were going to be writers -- Words of wisdom : what writers wish someone had told them.

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