page_title: Jonathan Franzen
section_title: Philosophy of writing
hierarchical_section_title: Jonathan Franzen / Philosophy of writing
caption_attribution_description: English: Jonathan Franzen at the 2010 National Book Critics Circle awards. Smith was nominated for the biography award.
context_page_description: Jonathan Earl Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections, a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His novel Freedom garnered similar praise and led to an appearance on the cover of Time magazine alongside the headline "Great American Novelist".
  Franzen has contributed to The New Yorker magazine since 1994. His 1996 Harper's essay "Perchance to Dream" bemoaned the state of contemporary literature. Oprah Winfrey's book club selection in 2001 of The Corrections led to a much publicized feud with the talk show host. In recent years, Franzen has become recognized for his opinions on everything from social networking services such as Twitter to the impermanence of e-books and the self-destruction of America.
context_section_description: During a lecture on autobiography and fiction, Franzen discussed four perennial questions often asked of him by audiences, all of which annoy or bother him in some way. They are:
  Who are your influences?
  What time of day do you work, and what do you write on?
  I read an interview with an author who says that, at a certain point in writing a novel, the characters "take over" and tell him what to do. Does this happen to you, too?
  Is your fiction autobiographical?
  In the lecture he said of the third question in particular "This one always raises my blood pressure" and quoted Nabokov in response.
  In February 2010, Franzen (along with writers such as Richard Ford, Margaret Atwood, and Anne Enright) was asked by The Guardian to contribute what he believed were ten serious rules to abide by for aspiring writers.
caption: Franzen at the 2010 National Book Critics Circle awards
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