Writers on the Air: Conversations About Books

by Donna Seaman

Overview

Writers on the Air brings to print for the first time Donna Seaman's vibrant author interviews from her Chicago-based radio program, Open Books. In these conversations, authors discuss their inspirations, their favorite books, their working and research habits. Seaman also connects the author's books with other writing, creating “constellations” of related books and ideas to introduce readers to wonderful writing they might not discover on their own.

Seaman created her radio show Open Books in 1994, and has been co-producer and host ever since, conducting interviews with dozens of fiction writers, poets, essayists, memoirists, and nature writers.

Writers on the Air includes interviews with Diane Ackerman, Margaret Atwood, Lynda Barry, Madison Smartt Bell, Dennis Bock, T. C. Boyle, Peter Carey, Sandra Cisneros, Wade Davis, Chitra Divakaruni, Stuart Dybek, Julia Glass, Lee Gutkind, Aleksandar Hemon, Edward Hirsch, Edward P. Jones, Ward Just, Jamaica Kincaid, Alex Kotlowitz, Chang-rae Lee, Alan Lightman, Phillip Lopate, Barry Lopez, Alice McDermott, Anchee Min, Sy Montgomery, Kate Moses, Joyce Carol Oates, Alex Shakar, Paul West, Colson Whitehead, and Terry Tempest Williams.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781589880214
Publisher:	Dry, Paul Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	09/01/2005
Pages:	467
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Donna Seaman is a book critic, an editor at Booklist, an essayist, a frequent contributor to the Chicago Tribune, Speakeasy, and other venues, and editor of the anthology In Our Nature: Stories of Wildness. The recipient of two Pushcart Prize Special Mentions and several Illinois Arts Council grants, she has hosted Open Books on WLUW-Chicago for the past ten years.

Table of Contents

	Creating Sanctuary, Feeling Exulted	xi
Part 1	Fiction
Section 1	First-time Novelists
	Introduction	3
	Dennis Bock	5
	Julia Glass	12
	Edward P. Jones	24
Section 2	Fictional License: Novels about Real People
	Introduction	32
	Madison Smartt Bell	34
	Peter Carey	48
	Anchee Min	60
	Kate Moses	76
Section 3	Worlds in Transition
	Introduction	91
	Margaret Atwood	93
	T. C. Boyle	107
	Alex Shakar	129
Section 4	Between Worlds
	Introduction	139
	Sandra Cisneros	141
	Chitra Divakaruni	154
	Aleksandar Hemon	167
	Jamaica Kincaid	179
	Chang-rae Lee	192
Section 5	Worlds within Worlds
	Introduction	209
	Stuart Dybek	211
	Ward Just	224
	Alice McDermott	240
	Joyce Carol Oates	254
Part 2	Genre Crossers
	Introduction	275
	Lynda Barry	277
	Edward Hirsch	285
	Alan Lightman	301
	Barry Lopez	313
	Paul West	322
	Colson Whitehead	333
Part 3	The Art and Intent of Creative Nonfiction
	Introduction	351
	Diane Ackerman	353
	Wade Davis	368
	Lee Gutkind	381
	Alex Kotlowitz	393
	Phillip Lopate	410
	Sy Montgomery	425
	Terry Tempest Williams	441
Part 4	Related Readings	453
	Acknowledgments	467

What People are Saying About This

Jay Parini

"A rare feast of literary conversation."
—author, The Apprentice Lover

Editorial Reviews

"Seaman is both passionate and generous on the air, and such caring tends to untie authorial tongues."

Chicago Sun-Times

"Insightful collections of interviews with authors abound, but none I have read is superior to Seaman's."

San Francisco Chronicle

In this collection of interviews drawn from her Chicago radio show, Open Books, Seaman shows herself to be a consummate book lover, engaging everyone from first-time novelists, such as Julia Glass and Edward P. Jones, to old hands like Peter Carey, T.C. Boyle and Margaret Atwood. Although she has a tendency to fall back on plot or the basics of character and doesn't always let a conversation grow organically, there are times-as in a wonderfully thoughtful interview with Chitra Divakaruni and an odd and funny dialogue with the comic strip artist Lynda Barry-when Seaman allows the writers to wax philosophical. Focusing heavily on novelists, this volume gives a refreshingly various portrait of both the writers' personalities and the writing process, which ranges from organized and disciplined to scattershot. While devotees of what longtime Booklist editor Seaman calls "serious literature" (as opposed to "popular fiction," a distinction she comes back to time and again) and followers of particular writers will find much to admire here, the book suffers from its translation from spoken word to print. On the page, the interviews lose the intimacy radio confers, that sense a listener has of being invited into a conversation, sharing a small confidence. (Sept.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

For this collection, essayist, editor, and book critic Seaman (In Our Nature: Stories of Wildness) culled interviews from her Chicago-based radio show, Open Books, in which she discusses the creative process and common assumptions about literature with a range of established, award-winning, and up-and-coming authors. As in the best author interviews that appear in the Paris Review, Seaman does not merely question her subjects-she engages them with her infectious enthusiasm and opinions, challenging them to articulate their methods, influences, and aesthetic judgments. In "Worlds in Transition," she talks to Alex Shakar about how he exploits the interstitial ground between full-blown sci-fi and literary fiction; in "Worlds Within Worlds," she examines the "nexus between individual and society," noting the importance of the neighborhood as "a crucible of the self" in Stuart Dybek's work; and in "Genre-Crossers," she tackles the creative process head-on, discussing with Edward Hirsch the angelic and demonic forces of "artistic possession." She concludes with a look at creative nonfiction, exploring the complex and often misunderstood relationship between nature and culture. Authors interviewed include Margaret Atwood, T.C. Boyle, Julia Glass, and Phillip Lopate. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.-Lee Ehlers, Greenville Cty. Lib. Syst., SC Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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