Passion and craft
Subtitle: conversations with notable writers
By: edited by Bonnie Lyons and Bill Oliver.
Contributors: Lyons, Bonnie.; Oliver, Bill, 1949-
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 195
Subjects: American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc.; Authors, American -- 20th century -- Interviews.; Authorship.; Short story.; Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.); Storytelling -- United States.
Description: The twelve contemporary fiction writers interviewed in Passion and Craft go beyond the usual chatting about career and technique, beyond the merely autobiographical. Readers will discover many personal and artistic differences: T. Coraghessan Boyle's self-aware hipness, Andre Dubus's spiritual strength in the face of physical disability. Rick Bass's commitment to environmental concerns.

Richard Ford, a recent winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN-Faulkner Award, describes how he takes control over his own material; and, in one of the few lengthy interviews she has ever granted, Gina Berriault, the 1997 winner of the National Book Critics' Circle Award, speaks movingly about the "gaps and silences" in a woman writer's life.
Notes: Includes index.
Table of contents: title: Richard Ford : important acts; title: Bobbie Ann Mason : quiet rebellions; title: T. Coraghessan Boyle : entertainments and provocations; title: Gina Berriault : "Don't I know you?"; title: Rick Bass : out of boundaries; title: Leonard Michaels : the lyric impulse; title: Christopher Tilghman : grappling with the holy mysteries; title: Thom Jones : a way of feeling better; title: Julia Alvarez : "A clean windshield"; title: Andre Dubus : "Passion is better"; title: Jayne Anne Phillips : the mystery of language; title: Tobias Wolff : citizens and outlaws.