“I think fiction is all about the exercise of the empathetic imagination. Part of what I do is let the stuff I read about meld with what I have experienced.” ThinkingStuffImaginationFictionExerciseEmpathetic Author:Jim Shepard
“I think there's a playfulness and a distance to Kavalier and Clay that I don't aspire to in my stuff. Maybe I'm more old-fashioned, and less of a fabulist, in that way.” ThinkingWayStuffDistanceAspireOld FashionedClayPlayfulness Author:Jim Shepard
“Disasters occur organically in my work, in that that's the way my thinking tends, more than that's what I start out by planning. I'm sort of a catastrophist.” ThinkingWayDisasterPlanning Author:Jim Shepard
“I don't think conservativism is about a deficiency. I think it's about a commitment to an ideology that has to in some ways devalue the usefulness of empathy. I do think empathy can be learned. And enhanced.” ThinkingWayEmpathyCommitmentIdeologyUsefulnessDeficiencyDevalue Author:Jim Shepard
“I think there's no question that historians create; they would tell you that, I think. If I'm trying to imagine an imperial Roman position, it's much easier to imagine the poor schlub who's not even sure why he's doing what he's doing than it is to imagine Caesar. At least for me. And I'm intrigued, too, by the position of the poor schlub who *still* finds himself supporting the imperial project.” IfsThinkingTryingStillsPoorImaginePositionEasierProjectsHistorianIntrigued Author:Jim Shepard
“I'm tempted to do everything. And sometimes I think, "Oh, come on. You can stick that detail somewhere."” ThinkingSometimesSticksDetailsTempted Author:Jim Shepard
“I have written screenplays. Most recently for Errol Morris, who was thinking about doing his first fiction movie, and with a young director who wanted to adopt Project X. Errol was a hoot. I loved talking with him. We were a good match, too, because we both kept joking that we'd found the only other person on earth more ambivalent than we were about the project.” ThinkingFirstsPersonsWantedEarthYoungFoundFictionTalkingWrittenDirectorsProjectsScreenplaysAmbivalentHootMorris Author:Jim Shepard
“The protagonist of Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours doesn’t make it easy for us, channeling as he does Barry Hannah and Denis Johnson by way of Rick Bass and Dennis Hopper, and self-presenting as yet another damaged romantic who thinks it’s always time to play the cowboy, skating in and out of sense. He can’t see right, and he’s haunted by nearly everything. He’s trying to open up or shut himself down or at least get a hold of himself. He’s trying to make do with what he’s done, while he reminds us that we’re all, one way or another, in that position.” ThinkingWayTryingDoeSelfDonePlayStoriesEasyPositionOne WayCowboyJohnsonBassPresentingSkatingFourteenChannelingProtagonists Author:Jim Shepard
