Archive for the ‘Interviews’ Category
The Meaning of Words: Rob Riemen on Art and Communication
Posted: August 26, 2009
Tags: Martin Heidegger, Leone Ginzburg, Walt Whitman, nonfiction, philosophy
“When words no longer tell the truth, when words turn into lies, language dies, and we with the language. It is the first and foremost task of every poet, of every novelist, to write meaningful words, to write truthful words. You don’t have to be religious, or a philosopher, or a great expert on Plato to realize that a language cannot be without truth.”
The Architecture of Persona: Steven Price Writes Houdini
Posted: July 21, 2009
Tags: Eadweard Muybridge, Al Purdy, Spiritualism, Harry Houdini, Arthur Conan Doyle
“I didn’t want to just hit the peaks of his life, I wanted to hit a number of the troughs too, small moments that aren’t necessarily talked about or discussed or described in the biographies but that he, of course, experienced. They tend to be incredibly important to us as individuals. Just that flicker of sunlight on the grass that you remember from your childhood, which means nothing to you except it’s such an extraordinarily warm, protective moment. Houdini would have had these too.”
Sculpture of Meaning: Karla Kelsey’s Language Arts
“I think I’m very infatuated with perception, where language and perception meet, and how language creates our perception while perception creates our language.”
The Alchemy of Composition: Jamie O’Neill’s Literary Magic
“When you’re writing you’re that bird on the wing, you’re soaring and you’re plummeting but you’re not telling the wings to do anything. When you’re describing afterwards what’s happened you’re applying logic to something that really is intuitive. You’re talking about ailerons and that sort of thing, like you’re moving an airplane rather than the eagle.”
A Study in Character: Dedra Johnson on the “Real” Voice in Fiction
“I’ve always liked the idea of the unreliable narrator, or the multi-layered narrator, where you understand more than the narrator is telling you, and so I very intentionally did that with her. Sandrine being a child made it possible to do that.”
