Writer, editor, translator
Here’s a link to a conversation I had in March with Sarah Carriger, the director of the International Writers’ Collective, the school where I teach. We cover getting unstuck, coming up with titles, keeping writing fun, dealing with self-doubt…
There’s a very good poem by Auden called “The Novelist,” a sonnet in fact. It begins by talking about the poet—“Encased in talent like a uniform … They can dash forward like hussars.” And it comes to the novelist. Your talent is very different. You must submit yourself to all human boredom. With the just, be just, with the filthy, filthy, too. It’s a much more promiscuous and Everyman-ish form.
Martin Amis, in this great interview with NY Magazine
A relief to hear this from a novelist. “All of human boredom” is a wonderful way to put it…