Author: Steve Himmer
-
A conversation with Scott Nadelson
1. What books and/or authors have had the most influence on your writing? There are a ton of them, far too many to name. I read in order to be influenced, to pick up as many influences as possible. That said, if there’s one influence that has remained consistently strong since early in my writing…
-
Some fragments [6]: Intersections
Woolf’s diary, 24 June, 1918: “Before tea this afternoon I finished setting up the last words of Katherine [Mansfield]‘s stories—68 pages.” + In 2004 I walked into a large room on the ground floor of a university building, a humid day, August, the river rising with mist, the bright blue of the sky signaling autumn…
-
A conversation with Nate House
What books and/or authors have had the most influence on your writing? I was really fortunate to have great professors, both as an undergraduate and graduate student at Temple University. They had the most influence because they looked at my writing and then told me what to read. They suggested people like John Hawkes, Patricia…
-
Some fragments [5]
Notes on process Woolf, December 7, 1918: “But this sort of writing is always done against time; however much time I have”. 1. I approached the novel (the long piece of fiction) with certain assumptions. For instance that its primary considerations are (‘should be’) character and plot. I have no knack for either and I…
-
Some fragments [4]
(On two themes) (A) As I sat down to write this piece (again and again attempting to begin and failing, taking each failure to heart so that the next time I sat to write it was harder to even think of writing and instead I wasted time reading articles on the internet or just used…
-
A conversation with Olivia Chadha
What books and/or authors have had the most influence on your writing? I enjoy heroic journeys and narratives that somehow get to a character’s bones rather than simply skimming their skin. Most great writers have this uncanny ability, but I always return to three genres for this reading experience since I was a child: Greek…
-
Some fragments [3]
In her diary, Woolf writes, “Then we walked down the river, in the face of a cold gale […] & gladly came home to tea; & now sit as usual surrounded by books & paper & ink, & so shall sit till bedtime—save that I have some mending to do” (p. 34—February 14, 1915). +…
-
Some fragments [2]
Fragments of Virginia Woolf (/of Anne Olivier Bell*). (ix): “I must beg those who find such explanations superfluous to ignore the footnotes.” “her choice and use of words often appears almost miraculous” The miraculous apparition of a writer’s words (the moment, some months after I have written something, a moment when, usually, I am not…
-
A conversation with Heather Fowler
What books and/or authors have had the most influence on your writing? I feel I have a variety of influences behind my work. Flannery O’Connor and her collected stories have been very formative, as have the collected stories of Vladimir Nabokov, which I used to carry around constantly. I select Flannery for her density, bold…
-
Some fragments [1]
1. I ask myself about being in this space with its title ‘necessary’ and its title ‘fiction’. 2. Yet here I am, and despite doubts, under those banners. 3. Some years ago I thought, I am a poet because I cannot write anything longer than a page. I couldn’t imagine the kind of attention that…
-
Do you love sentences?
One of the wonderful things about an origin story is the suddenness with which it can strike. One day you’re living your ordinary life… then, blam, revelation: you see, say, taste, touch, hear, smell something that forever changes things. For me, it started innocently enough in a college classroom. A creative writing professor had us…
-
Like Water
If I’m telling the truth, I’ve also been thinking of narratives of origin because this summer I am returning to fiction writing after time away to write a nonfiction book and to parent a chronically sick child. For three years, our little boy cried (what seemed like all day, every day) and he did not…