I'm asked all the time, "Doesn't it feel great to finish the novel?" And the answer to that is, "No." It's sort of a loss to stop a 10-year project, ….

For any artistic person who creates imaginary people, the art is like inhabiting the life and mind of a seven-year-old child with imaginary friends a….

What I do is, I'm like a disease that infects real people and I take them over. We can start off in a very journalistic mode describing a character a….

The biggest challenge in the research process is to let go, to stop, to say enough, and then to reduce all of that beloved labor down to a few succin….

With iron and blood, it seems, and from the rich depths of the earth, John Griswold has fashioned a classic American novel, its dignified intonations….

Writing is a process of discovering. I could never outline a narrative; that just sounds boring. There's no joy of discovery in what you're doing if ….

Trying to get the sentences right and the structure of the narration right is about as big a job as I can handle. But I also know that if you handle ….

It is no secret that souls sometimes die in a person and are replaced by others..

The illusion of control has to be there, but mostly I'm following characters and the consequences of their own decisions, because a lot of the time t….

I should like to elbow aside the established pieties and raise my martini glass in salute to the mortal arts of pleasure..