Something about writing
“Though it’s unlikely you’ll write something nobody has ever heard of, the way you have a chance to compete is in the way you say it.”
Amy Hempel
The Paris Review, Issue 166, Summer 2003
Although it only happened today, I cannot remember how I came upon Jonathan Raban’s review of The Paris Review Interviews Volume 1 in the 13 January 2007 issue of The Guardian. But from there, I went to The Paris Review’s web site, zoomed in on the Interviews section and came upon the above gem by Amy Hempel.
The Interview Index is impressive, going back more than half a century to the 1950s, and includes the likes of Chinua Achebe, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Joyce Cary, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Joseph Heller, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, Beryl Bainbridge, Paul Auster and yes, Amy Hempel whose little gem above caught my eye in the short time I spent browsing that section.
Most of the interviews featured are excerpts of the originals printed in their respective issues, but there are some complete interviews available for download in PDF format. And – get this – images of manuscript pages. Priceless.
I will be going back for a longer read later on.
