Interviews with Writers

I tripped over an amazing archive of Paris Review writer interviews. They've been publishing these timeless gems for years, and they have some/most/all posted online, available as downloadable PDFs. Well worth checking out.

Can you guess which author said this: "During signing sessions my queue is always full of, you know, wild-eyed sleazebags and people who stare at me very intensely, as if I have some particular message for them.”

Which author dropped this nugget: "On the dangers of writing too much: 'By the eighteenth book, one has a sense of having bricked oneself into a niche, a roosting place for other people's pigeons. I wouldn't recommend it.'"

Okay, one more: “Another thing I need to do, when I'm near the end of the book, is sleep in the same room with it. . . . Somehow the book doesn't leave you when you're asleep right next to it.”

My Favorite (Drunk) Writer

Life magazine online recently posted a list of the top literary drunks and addicts of all time. The list includes great photos and fun facts about iconic figures of the literati, and its scope extends beyond (but still includes) obvious literary addicts Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac.

Find out what vice your favorite writer was partial to. For example, Tennessee Williams was fond of alcohol. What was another of his weaknesses? (Hint: it starts with amph and ends with etamines). How did Louisa May Alcott get hooked on morphine? Did Dylan Thomas actually proclaim, "I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that is a record," before he keeled over at the Chelsea Hotel in November, 1953. What famous writer, who died in 1984, and was hooked on booze and various drugs, had this to say about himself: "I'm an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict. I'm homosexual. I'm a genius." Hint: he wrote In Cold Blood.