Interview Roundup: Now Mark’s Heart Is Full

With the publication of Mark Sarvas’s interview with John Banville, The Elegant Variation has pretty much fulfilled its reason for being, and Mark can now retire from blogging. But I’m glad he won’t.

• Before she got famous on Room 222, Denise Nicholas was a theatrical activist in the civil rights movement, an experience that drives her debut novel, Freshwater Road. She talks about how her long-held dream to write about those years came to fruition after she joined a workshop led by Janet Fitch, and took the bold step of burning her diaries so as to avoid relying on them instead of her imagination.

• A bunch of first-time writers, including yours truly, got together with Dan Wickett of Emerging Writers Network to talk about how we got our deals and what we’ll be doing to convince you to buy our books. Richard Nash of Soft Skull drops by to tell us “it’s all about expectations management.” And you know what? He’s right.
  

13 September 2005 | interviews |