The World Within: Writers Talk Ambition, Angst, Aesthetics, Bones, Books, Beautiful Bodies, Censorship, Cheats, Comics, Darkness, Democracy, Death, ... Men, Old Boys' Network, Oprah, Outcasts... - Softcover

McCormack, Win

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0977698963 ISBN 13: 9780977698967

Publisher: Tin House Books, 2007

Synopsis

The World Within pulls aside the curtain on a variety of literary personalities and careers, presenting frank, funny, and informal discussions with Sherman Alexie, Francine Prose, George Saunders, Mark Strand, and others. Writers discuss craft, literary theft, dry spells, what they do besides writing, and more.

The World Within gathers twenty of the freshest, funniest, and most intriguing interviews in the history of Tin House. Featuring informal conversations with a veritable who's-who of contemporary writers, poets, and graphic novelists, these remarkable interviews offer insights into the creative process, questions of craft, and the balance between a writer’s work and life. Featuring Sherman Alexie, Tracy Chevalier, Charles D'Ambrosio, Lydia Davis, Anita Desai, Roddy Doyle, Rikki Ducornet, Deborah Eisenberg, Nuruddin Farah, Denis Johnson, Tracy Kidder, Francine Prose, Marilynne Robinson, Barney Rosset, James Salter, Marjane Satrapi, George Saunders, Wallace Shawn, Jim Shepard, Mark Strand, and Gus Van Sant.

About this title

About the Author

Win McCormack is publisher and editor-in-chief of Tin House magazine. He has been in the magazine and book publishing business since 1976. He published Oregon Magazine from 1976 to 1988, and has also been involved in publishing Oregon Business, Oregon Home, Travel Oregon, Military History Quarterly, and Art and Auction magazines, and was involved in the start-up of Mother Jones. He is editor of the books Profiles of Oregon, Great Moments in Oregon History, and The Rajneesh Chronicles, and won a William Allen White award for his investigative coverage of the Rajneesh cult from 1982-1986. He writes on politics and wrote the article "Deconstructing the Election: Foucault, Derrida and GOP strategy," about the presidential election debacle in Florida in 2000, for the Nation. He holds a BA in Government from Harvard College and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon.

Holly MacArthur lives in Portland, OR.

Rob Spillman is editor of Tin House magazine and executive editor of Tin House Books. He was previously the monthly book columnist for Details magazine and is a contributor of book reviews and essays to Salon and Bookforum. He has written for the Baltimore Sun, the Boston Review, British GQ, Connoisseur, Details, Nerve, the New York Times Book Review, Premiere, Rolling Stone, Spin, Sports Illustrated, SPY, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Worth, among other magazines, newspapers, and online magazines. He has also worked for Random House, Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker.

Michelle Wildgen is the author of the novel You’re Not You (St. Martin’s/Dunne). She is a senior editor at Tin House magazine, where she edits the Readable Feast and Blithe Spirits departments, and an editor at Tin House Books. Her writing has appeared in Best New American Voices 2004, Best Food Writing 2004, the anthology Death by Pad Thai, the journals StoryQuarterly, TriQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, Small Spiral Notebook, and elsewhere.

From Publishers Weekly

In informal interviews with colleagues, more than 20 writers sound off about their passions, pet peeves, literary inspirations and obstacles. Claribel Alegría describes to Debbie Fields her commitment to the Nicaraguan revolution and how politically conservative Salvadoran relatives burned her books; Deborah Eisenberg discusses with Anna Keesey the political ignorance of ordinary Americans and why she lacks the nerve for playwriting. Sherman Alexie explains to Bob Spillman how writing about Indian middle-class domesticity can be revolutionary and castigates Ian Frazier for colonial literature; Lydia Davis explores with Rick Moody her translation of Proust's Swann's Way, and Anita Desai reveals to Ben George that she hid her writing life from her young children and why there's so little sex in her works. Tin House laudably gives some well-deserved attention to a number of writers who aren't household names, though the inclusion of filmmaker Gus Van Sant is incongruous. Also, interviews assume readers have deep familiarity with the writers' works, and the book suffers from the lack of a thorough, organizing preface and from cliquishness—Denis Johnson and Charles D'Ambrosio are both interviewers and interviewees; and Keesey gushes to Eisenberg that it's been her life's mission to increase Eisenberg's readership. (Jan. 15)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Tin House Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0977698963
• ISBN 13: 9780977698967
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 350
• Editor: MacArthur Holly, McCulloch Jeanne, Montgomery Lee, Spillman Rob, Wildgen Michelle