I didn’t take it personally. I mean, you just grow up knowing what’s important. One day I sat down and wrote a list of foods I remembered eating and then just started writing. I turned this list into titles—such as “Uncle Joey’s Squab,” “Avocado Uncle,” “Spoon Meat,” and “Fifty-Dollar Pineapple”—and before I knew it, I had started writing a book.—Kathleen Tyau

Some writers never use dialogue. Some use almost all dialogue. Some writers don’t use much scene; it’s mainly a kind of ongoing narrative summary. Some writing is all scene. And so on. There’re all these techniques available, and people gravitate toward some and not to others.—David Long

It is terribly easy to write in first person; in fact, I think it's so easy that unless you're really gifted like Kaye Gibbons, you're going to use it in a cheap way. The first person point of view is incredibly plastic – it'll take you anywhere you want to go.—Jim Grimsley, interviewed by Jim Schumock

There are a couple stories in there in which the point of view does shift. It is an unusual move to make in a short story and one that you had better have a good reason for doing because it can feel like a cute device. It can feel like fancy footwork. You have to have good reasons for doing it.—Tobias Wolff, interviewed by Jim Schumock

When I read jokes, I almost never laugh. But when they’re told to me, they make me laugh. There’s a thing about told jokes that’s quite intellectual. Writing stories about people’s pain, people who are trying to get used to their pain, that’s a thing you feel your way through. Writing a joke is really hard thinking. You have to construct it. It’s much harder to write funny than it is to write sad.—Richard Bausch, interviewed by Jennifer Levasseur and Kevin Rabalais

Issue #11 WA11$6.00