I am amazed by the way that a story can fail by having a few words out of place. And more often than not, I think it’s because the writer has been afraid of turning the heat up.—Charles Baxter

You have to start with what you know, and that gets back to the question of some physical detail…"My mother left home." Everyone immediately relates to that sentence.—Jayne Anne Phillips, interviewed by Sarah Anne Johnson

I used to be really obsessed with an almost symmetrical, formal structure, and I was less willing to let the unconscious or associative patterns dominate form…I’ve been more willing as I’ve gone on to let myself be surprised, to include things like silence and uncertainty and self-referential discussion about the nature of writing to come in and create forms that are a bit more open. —Mary Gordon, interviewed by Charlotte Templin

When I do this first draft, I shut the lights off and pull a stocking cap over my head and eyes, and I’m typing blind. It’s the old paradox that you see by blinding yourself.—Kent Haruf, interviwed by Jim Nashold

I’m not an internally silent person, but external silence is a part of every day—long hours where there’s no noise. I never listen to the radio or music or anything. I like pure silence.—Mark Salzman

WA27$6.00