The Essence of Tommy Dean: An interview by Curtis Smith
Compression calls for a unique way of creating stories that don’t always follow traditional plots and story arcs.
Compression calls for a unique way of creating stories that don’t always follow traditional plots and story arcs.
I thought that authors writing in a personal way about a formative work of literature was a great idea.
Wisdom is only true wisdom when it isn’t merely a reassuring echo of one’s own views.
The boy’s breadth of knowledge concerns his father. The child’s obsessions, his tape-recorder memory.
responsibility can be a restraint that gives shape to your art, but it also can be a release, enlarging perception, illuminating what had been unseen.
As I write, I follow the voice of the narrator through these moments and specifics, always paying close attention to the energy of sentences and where they lead.
I think we can borrow a lot from the semiotics and nuances of film. The tension created by the act of interpretation is a cinematic exercise.
Unlike other genres (think sonnet; think most film), [the novel] is a genre that doesn’t really know what it is and yet is committed to finding out, that is always trying to figure and break out of its own generic constraints.
I always begin my day with 20-30 minutes of freewriting.
It’s a laugh, but not so funny these days when an algorithm designed by an invisible hand can decide whether someone goes home or stays in jail. For the characters in my book, false narratives can be deadly.