“With fiction, it could be about anything. It just has to be good writing, like Maria Semple's "Where'd You Go, Bernadette," which I read recently. I want to forget I have a book in my hand.” WantWritingBookHandsForgetFictionBe GoodGood Writing Author:Cheryl Strayed
“I remember I was very taken with a book called DreamTigers by [Jorge Luis] Borges. He was at the University of Texas, Austin, and they collected some of his writings and put them in a little collection. It's called DreamTigers in English, but it doesn't exist in Spanish. It's a little sampler. But that collection in English is what struck me, because in there he has his poems, and I was a poet as well as a fiction writer.” WritingWellsLittlesBookRememberFictionTakenPoetUniversityCollectionsTexasFiction WritersAustinBorgesUniversity Of Texas Author:Sandra Cisneros
“Because I write realistic fiction, I generally don't think about fixing anyone - I just think about how I want to feel at the end of the book - And I try to write toward that feeling.” ThinkingWantFeelsWritingTryingBookEndsFeelingsFictionRealisticFixingRealistic Fiction Author:Jacqueline Woodson
“It's like that where these little anecdotes come through, and I guess that's what I like about books like that [He Stopped Loving Her Today]. Fiction now is so experiential.” LittlesBookTodayFictionAnecdotes Author:Scott McClanahan
“[I like to read] spiritual books, non-fiction, fiction, I have my moods.” BookSpiritualFictionMoodNon Fiction Author:MC Lyte
“There's no specific punishment in the books of fiqh (Islamic laws) that relate to homosexuality per se. They apply to any illicit sexual relations, including prohibited heterosexual acts like adultery. And the punishments are strong, but they are legal fictions because they are impossible to prove. You need four witnesses to say they witnessed (sexual) penetration. In what circumstances are you going to find someone to testify to that?” NeedsBookLawStrongFictionFourImpossibleCircumstancesProveRelationIncludingPunishmentWitnessRelateIslamicHomosexualityAdulteryPenetrationIslamic Law Author:Hamza Yusuf
“Speed is not an indicator of quality in terms of fiction. That's true of one's relative slowness or swiftness - taking 10 years to write a book or taking 10 days to write a book (or a comic or a film or an angry postcard) guarantees nothing in terms of how good or how bad that story is.” WritingYearsBookStoriesFilmTermFictionQualityAngrySpeedComicGuaranteesRelativeIndicatorsSlownessPostcardsSwiftness Author:Chuck Wendig
“When I read any book, if it's really good I get lost in the writing whether it's fiction or non-fiction. I'm in the story not thinking about who wrote it.” IfsThinkingWritingBookStoriesLostFictionNon Fiction Author:Jeff Feuerzeig
“I was 45 when I wrote most of this book [Hungry Heart ], at what felt like a halfway point in my life, and I thought, If I can't be honest now, when will it happen? It was so hard to step away from the [protection of] fiction, but I'm ready to talk start telling their truth.” IfsHeartI CanBookHardHappensFeltFictionStepsHonestReadyProtectionHungryBeing HonestHalfway Author:Jennifer Weiner
“I struggle with the fact that men's popular fiction is talked about differently. Books like mine don't get as many reviews and probably won't win any prizes, but they entertain the pants off of hundreds of thousands of women.” MenBookFactsWinningFictionStruggleMinesPrizeReviewsPants Author:Jennifer Weiner
“Stephen King writes mass fiction but gets reviewed by the New York Times and writes for the New Yorker. Critics say to me, "Shut up and enjoy your money," and I think, OK, I'll shut up and enjoy my money, but why does Stephen King get to enjoy his money and get reviewed on the cover of the New York Times Sunday Book Review?” ThinkingWritingDoeBookEnjoyFictionNew YorkKingsMassCriticsSundayReviewsShut UpNew York TimesNew YorkersBook Review Author:Jennifer Weiner
“In a way, I see my fiction as having moved in that direction - and the characters as dealing simultaneously with their personal history and with the present in which they are trying to make their way. So that the books are simultaneously about public and interior events. And I am having a great time getting confused and crazed writing about them.” WayWritingTryingBookCharacterFictionEventsMovedConfusedInteriorsGreat TimesPersonal History Author:Frederick Busch
“Because I'm such a creative person, and I've always got my nose in a book, I suppose it was only a matter of time before non-fiction turned into fiction again. But I never consciously set out to become a writer and I never thought I'd be doing the things I'm doing today.” WritingPersonsBookMatterTodayFictionCreativeNosesNon FictionCreative PersonMatter Of Time Author:Paul Kane
“Many Americans have never owned a book. And others have never owned a non-fiction book. Providing them with a 300-page paperback would get them started, maybe. And even if it didn't, at least they'd own that one. So that's a serious problem.” IfsBookProblemFictionSeriousPagesProvidingNon Fiction Author:James W. Loewen
“My work is very eclectic. I write books that range from writing fiction, writing fable where I am very directly trying to imagine alternate worlds, to writing about [Buckminster] Fuller who was the ultimate world man creating all sorts of alternate worlds and believing that they were imminent to my own work of - for instance, a project that I've been working on for some year and a half, two years now that continues to evolve has been what I call Deep Time Photography.” MenWorldWritingTryingYearsBelieveHas BeensTwoBookMy OwnHalfFictionImagineProjectsCreatingPhotographyUltimateInstanceEvolveRangeTwo YearsFablesFiction WritingWriting FictionEclecticBuckminster Fuller Author:Jonathon Keats
“For books, I don't read much fiction, but like travel essays and good pop-science.” BookFictionPopsEssays Author:Dennis Ritchie
“I may be the person who put "dieselpunk" into the conversation. I have always been a reader who reads in a really broad way. I read genre writers and I read literary fiction and I read books by dead people.” PeopleWayMayPersonsBookFictionReaderConversationGenreBroadsDead People Author:Emily Barton
“Whenever I sign books, I get this line over and over again from men: "I don't read fiction, but my wife does. Would you sign the book to her?" What are those men doing there? And where are their wives?” MenDoeBookLinesFictionWifeMy Wife Author:Siri Hustvedt
“As for whether genre considerations influence what I write, they don't at all, but I might sell more books if they did. The Night Journal is a hodge-podge of historical fiction, western, mystery, and contemporary domestic drama. It doesn't settle into a specific market, reviewers have a hard time describing it, and sometimes it gets classified weirdly in bookstores. But from a writer's standpoint, I like that it's hard to categorize.” IfsWritingBookSometimesHardMightNightFictionMysteryInfluenceDramaSellsHistoricalWesternContemporaryGenreSettlingHard TimesConsiderationHistorical FictionJournalDescribingStandpointBookstoresReviewers Author:Elizabeth Crook
“When I was a kid, I was a big science fiction fan, but current horror books were harder to get your hands on.” BookHandsBigsKidsFictionFansHorrorHarderScience FictionCurrents Author:John Darnielle
“There is a insularity within American fiction even for adults. It's very tough for books in translation in the US.” BookFictionAdultsToughTranslationsInsularity Author:Laila Lalami
“I really need to know where I'm going with fiction to write it in a way that at least I'm happy with. And I really think that a lot of fiction books end badly because terrific writers said, "I'll just figure it out" and plunge in, but have created so many problems that they are kind of impossible to solve. I mean, I'm talking really good writers do this and you can tell when they got to the end they either had to do something preposterous or they just don't really resolve things. So for fiction I spend a lot more time outlining and for humor I really don't do much of it.” ThinkingKnowsWayNeedsWritingKindMeanSaidBookEndsProblemFictionTalkingImpossibleFiguresSolveResolveMore TimeTerrificPlungeGood WritersOutlining Author:Dave Barry
“The anger is useful too because when things about the world upset you, that is really a fertile feeling to channel into fiction and to put out into books.” WorldBookFeelingsFictionUpsetFertile Author:Mohsin Hamid
“I think I've actually benefited from Australia being a kind of combination of both British and American culture. We kind of got the best of both British and American television and books, science fiction and fantasy, and so on. So I'm familiar with a lot of, for example, American books and television that a British author of my generation might not be.” ThinkingKindBookMightCultureFictionFantasyGenerationsExampleTelevisionScience FictionBritishFamiliarCombinationAustraliaAmerican CultureMy GenerationAmerican TelevisionScience Fiction And Fantasy Author:Garth Nix
“Ultimately, I want a peak experience in reading, and that is sometimes difficult to find in contemporary fiction. I'm not interested in books that are just clever and well executed; polish doesn't impress me, and I don't care about a merely capable sentence. Life is short; I want a confrontation with high art. I want soul.” WantWellsArtBookSoulSometimesCareLife IsReadingDifficultFictionCapableDon't CareSentencesCleverContemporaryI Don't CareNot InterestedImpressLife Is ShortPolishConfrontationContemporary FictionHigh ArtPeak Experiences Author:C.E. Morgan
“As a reader, I notice political views regardless of whether or not the book is fiction. What annoys me is when said views do nothing to advance the narrative.” SaidBookPoliticalViewsFictionReaderNarrativeAnnoyingPolitical View Author:Jen Lancaster
“The idea of a flip book still really appeals to me. That idea of fiction and non-fiction.” StillsBookIdeasFictionAppealsNon FictionFlip Author:Yann Martel