>The best thing in the current issue of The Paris Review is the interview with Barry Hannah. For an excerpt, click here.
There are lots of good tips in the full interview. Some of my favorites:
. . . voice is just about finding your own past valuable, the people and
conditions you have observed, usually close to home
. . . if words get in the way of your story, you are in trouble
. . . I hate editing. I love to write, but I hate to reread my stuff
. . . I think people may be unaware of how interesting they or their friends or their family are
. . . So as much as possible, I use life itself because I’m more and more convinced that a subject matter of quality is what gives you words. The subject itself will dictate better nouns and verbes if you’ve got a good story
Not that the rest of the issue doesn’t have some good qualities too. I enjoyed the Haruki Murakami story, Heigh-Ho, the first thing of Murakami’s that I’ve read.
