THE WRITING LIFE
WRITERS ON HOW THEY
THINK AND WORK
A COLLECTION
FROM THE Washington Post Book World
EDITED AND
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
AND COMMENTARY BY Marie Arana
PUBLICAFFAIRS New York CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION BY MARIE ARANA XIH
PART ONE: ON BECOMING A WRITER
The Seduction of the Text 3 FrancineDuPlessix Gray
The Importance of Childhood n Joyce Carol Oates
Looking for the Spark 19 Joanna Trollope
How to Identify and Nurture Young Writers 25 James Michener
Touched by an Angel 33 MaryHiggins Clark
The Leap from Necessity to Invention 39 John Keegan
A Real-Life Education 46 Susan Minot
Emerging from Under Your Rejection Slips 52 Muriel Spark viii Contents
BeingaProductofYourDwellingPlace 58 Nadine Gordimer
Doing It for Love 64 Erica Jong
PART TWO: RAW MATERIAL
Too Happy for Words 73 Alice McDermott
Using My Father's Story 78 CraigNova
Between Origins and Art 84 George P. Pelecanos
The Writer As Outlaw 90 Jayne AnnePhillips
From Memory to the Imagination 95 Ntozake Shange
Can Whites Write About Blacks? 103 Scott Turow
In Praise of Silence in John Edgar Wideman
Bicultural, Adrift, and Wandering 118 Anita Desai Contents ix
On Finding a Latino Voice 126 Julia Alvarez
Living in Irish, Writing in English 134 JohnBanville
PART THREE: HUNKERING DOWN
Holidays at the Keyboard Inn 143 Wendy Wasserstein
The Passionate Researcher 150 Patricia Cornwell
From Packrat to Historian 156 Stanley Karnow
Climbing Into Another Head 162 David McCullough
Hunter of Metaphors 168 Ray Bradbury
Following the Script 178 EdmundMorris
Headbirths: Bookish Midwifery 184 Michael Korda
Guided by Voices: The Work of a Ghostwriter 194 David Chanoff Contents
PART FOUR: OLD BOTTLE, NEW WINE
From Will-of-the-Wisp to Full-Blown Novel 205 E. L. Doctorow
Reincarnation, Translation and Adventure 212 UmbertoEco
Master of My Universe 221 Stanley Elkin
Sounds and Sensibilities 228 NedRorem
Writer with Scalpel 235 Richard Selzer
A Chronicle of the Plague Years 242 Reynolds Price
On Being a Novice Playwright 250 CynthiaOzick
Acting Out, Letting Go 258 Gloria Naylor
Pen Names Galore 264 Donald E. Westlake
Summer Lite 270 Barbara Mertz Contents xi
PART FIVE: FACING THE FACTS
History Is Their Beat: The New Journalist Historians 279 David Halberstam
A Novel Approach to Reality: Basing a Story in Facts 289 Dominick Dunne
Making the Truth Believable 297 Tracy Kidder
Describing the World As It Is, Not As It Would Be 304 CarlSagan
The Political Memoir: Taking Note of History 312 GeorgeP. Shultz
President in Search of a Publisher 322 Jimmy Carter
Biographer, Get a Life 330 Stacy Schiff
From the Clinic 338 Kay Redfield Jamison
Notes from the Road 344 Jonathan Raban
Natural Selections 351 E. O. Wilson xii Contents
Speaking Up for the Environment 359 BillMcKibben
PART SIX: LOOKING BACK
The Trouble with Finishing 367 Frances FitzGerald
The Hardest Critics 373 Carol Shields
Literary Executions 380 Julian Barnes
Taking It All Back 387 Jane Smiley
Writer, Be Afraid 393 Michael Chabon
In Search of the Next Idea 399 Wardjust