WRITERS ASK  ISSUE 69 EXCERPTS

Do we ever live a day in the here and now that isn't the result of, or the reaction to, the days of once upon a time? Such is the depth of our living. We carry with us the dimensions of our choices, our non-choices, the lives of others that rubbed up against our own.—Lee Martin

Having a secret feels like having the ability to keep some small part of yourself protected from the utter chaos of life. This is an illusion, of course…it is an illusion as well that keeping secrets under wraps protects us from pain.—Barb Johnson, interviewed by Andrew Scott

This shift began when I was in my forties working on The Suicide Index. Before that, I used to think of the phrase “paying your dues” in terms of the rewards you would get; pay your dues and then the door opens. But now I wonder if paying your dues actually means the door in your head opens. The door opens in your head, and you start being able to do a different, freer kind of writing. Maybe that's the apprenticeship. So it's less about the profession, and more about what you can access in yourself.—Joan Wickersham, interviewed by Amy Yelin

Some of my stuff was unspecific, and [Cormac] McCarthy said you have to say exactly what you mean. I think that was good advice. For example I'd had a guy breaking a windshield with a rock. McCarthy wrote a paragraph about that. He said the sound that I described was not the sound a safety glass window makes when it gets broken. He said that, if nothing else, go to a junkyard and break a window out and hear how it sounds. I'd had the windshield tinkling like a pan of glass while actually, safety glass just kind of collapses.—William Gay, interviewed by Sybil Baker

Bret Anthony Johnston's Corpus Christi: Stories taught me everything I know about the fluid transition between backstory and front story, between past and present scenes.—David James Poissant, interviewed by Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum

Writing begets writing, so the more I write, the more ideas I have. The same with reading. Saul Bellow said that all writers are readers moved to emulation—which is such a beautiful and right and inspiring and perfect thing to say and believe—so whenever I read something wonderful, I want to write. This is one of the many reasons why I love teaching. I leave workshop every week the way I hope my students leave—aching to write because of what we've just read.—Bret Anthony Johnston, interviewed by Margo Williams