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TranscriptsOff the Page is based on forty-one interviews with forty-three writers, originally published on washingtonpost.com. The Live Online format at washingtonpost.com allows Web users to ask the authors questions directly. My role, as host of "Off the Page," is to choose the best questions from the online audience as well as ask a few of my own. The interviews usually last about an hour, with questions coming in live from the online audience. Most of the interviews were conducted by phone; sometimes the writer spoke from home, other times a hotel room while the book tour, as questions came in from all over the world. Two interviews were done in person--one by Martin Amis in my office, and another, with Stuart Dybek and John McNally, at the AWP conference in Chicago, where we took questions from both people attending the conference and the online audience. The quotes from the book come largely from these interviews, although I also filled in some gaps by asking authors off-line in the final months of writing Off the Page. Please note: Web users must log into washingtonpost.com to access these transcripts.Martin Amis discusses his 2003 novel, Yellow Dog, sex in literature, and his critics. November 2003 Transcript: Marie Arana talks about the real world inspirations behind her novel, Cellophane and why the book is not magical realism. October 2006 Transcript Paul Auster explores the world of a writer within the world of his 2003 novel, Oracle Night. December 2003 Transcript Doreen Baingana joins her editor to talk about Tropical Fish: Stories Out of Entebbe, which won the AWP Award for Short Fiction. February 2005 Transcript Russell Banks discusses the place of history and historical characters in fiction in the context of his 2004 novel, The Darling. December 2004 Transcript Richard Bausch talks about imagining a fictional world, going through his work again and again, and, once, turning an 800-page novel into a short story as he publishes The Stories of Richard Bausch all while searching for his car at Dulles Airport. November 2003 Transcript Charles Baxter talks about his 2003 novel, Saul and Patsy, his National Book Award-short listed The Feast of Love, and the inspiration of Katherine Anne Porter. October 2003 Transcript Baxter's Web site A.S. Byatt talks about her book of short stories, Little Black Book of Stories and how she begins her works not with ideas, or characters, but color. April 2004 Transcript Dan Chaon explores the process of writing his first novel, You Remind Me of Me. July 2004 Transcript Michael Cunningham discusses his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Hours, and "the notion of making art out of art." January 2004 Transcript John Dalton joins two other first-time authors, Hannah Tinti and Claire Tristram, as they talk about the thrill of being published for the first time, and what it took to get there. May 2004 Transcript DaltonÕs Web site www.daltonnovel.com E.L. Doctorow is queried on almost all his works in this May 2004 interview that coincides with the release of his collection, Sweet Land Stories. May 2004 Transcript Anthony Doerr talks about writing and finishing his first novel, About Gracehow it came about, when he knew the ending. October 2004 transcript:
Doerr's Web site Stuart Dybek and John McNally throw around ideas about Chicago as a backdrop to fiction and whether there's a Chicago aesthetic in this interview from the 2004 AWP Conference. March 2004 Transcript Richard Ford answers questions about Frank Bascombe and the mutability of characters as he publishes the third book in the series, The Lay of the Land. December 2006 Transcript Tod Goldberg joins Pam Houston to discuss the surreal in their work--how he goes back to re-read a story, "and there's Elvis bleeding on the wall." November 2005 Transcript
Goldberg's Web site Elizabeth Graver explores the fine balance between sentiment and sentimentality, and her early inspirations as a writer, in this interview about her fourth book, Awake. April 2004 Transcript
GraverÕs Web site Shirley Hazzard talks about the backdrop of her National Book Award-winning novel, The Great Fire. January 2004 Transcript Pam Houston joins Tod Goldberg to discuss observation as a survival skill and the "community of voices" in her novel, Sight Hound. November 2005 Transcript
Houston's Web site Maureen Howard looks at how hidden stories are explored in her novel about a former silent movie star, The Silver Screen. September 2004 Transcript Frances Itani talks about the importance of sound, silence and language to her writing in this interview about her debut novel tracing the life of a deaf woman, Deafening. February 2004 Transcript Gish Jen talks about humor, race and difficult mothers as her fourth book, The Love Wife, is published. September 2004 Transcript Edward P. Jones, in this interview given before he won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction, talks about the mix of fact, fiction and inspiration that helped form his novel about black slave owners in the antebellum South, The Known World. October 2003 Transcript Jhumpa Lahiri talks about identity, stories and why she writes as The Namesake is published, her first novel and her first book since Interpreter of Maladies won the Pulitzer Prize. October 2003 Transcript Andrea Levy discusses her novel, Small Island, shortly after it won the prestigious 2004 Orange Prize. June 2004 Transcript: Margot Livesey explores 'whether one can ever know another person or oneselfÊ' in her 2004 novel, Banishing Verona, and her other works. December 2004 Transcript Readerville site for Livesey Alice McDermott talks about how memory retells and reshapes stories in this debut ÒOff the PageÓ interview. October 2003 Transcript Readerville site for Livesey John McNally and Stuart Dybek throw around ideas about Chicago as a backdrop to fiction and whether there's a Chicago aesthetic in this interview from the 2004 AWP Conference. March 2004 Transcript
HoustonÕs Web site Walter Mosley talks about short stories, what he likes about the mystery genre, and the first time he heard Easy Rawlins' name. January 2004 Transcript (not available) Thisbe Nissen talks about the different New Yorks of her fiction as she publishes her second novel, Osprey Island. August 2004 Transcript Joyce Carol Oates talks about the feeling of "soaring over the jungle" that she has in a final revision, part of her first "Off the Page" interview, and discusses her collection of short stories in her second interview. October 2003 Transcript
May 2006 Transcript Tim Parks logs in from Italy to discuss his 2004 novel, Judge Savage, and Hellas's prospects in football. December 2003 Transcript Carolyn Parkhurst explores the origins of her first novel, The Dogs of Babel. November 2003 Transcript Parkhurst's Web site Marisha Pessl talks about the structure of her acclaimed novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, the influence of Nabokov, and other literary topics. October 2006 Transcript Joanna Scott, author of seven books, talks about the how she begins, what she strives for in her writing and the "truth" of fiction. March 2004 Transcript Joan Silber talks about persistence, revision and the editorial process with her W.W. Norton editor, Carol Houck Smith, just after Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories is named a finalist for the National Book Award. November 2004 Transcript Alison Smith explores the process of writing her memoir, Name All the Animals and how she learned she had to make herself a character. (February 2004 Transcript not available) Smith's Web site Art Spiegelman talks about his take on 9/11, In The Shadow of No Towers. Oct. 2004 Transcript Hannah Tinti joins two other first-time authors, John Dalton and Claire Tristram, as they talk about the thrill of being published for the first time, and what it took to get there. May 2004 Transcript Tinti's Web site Colm Toib'n discusses his novel about Henry James, The Master. July 2004 Transcript Claire Tristram discusses her first novel, After, with two other first-time authors, Hannah Tinti and John Dalton. May 2004 Transcript Tristram's Web site Tobias Wolff talks about the balance of autobiography and fiction in his 2003 novel, Old School. December 2003 Transcript Mary Kay Zuravleff explores how her curiosity about Rumi, her love of museums, and a skill for juggling carried her through the writing of her second novel, The Bowl Is Already Broken. May 2004 Transcript Zuravleff's Web site |
