I was introduced to Thoughtcast, a site that features interviews with authors, intellectuals, and academics on a variety of focused topics. Here’s the newest addition:
“Tom Perrotta, the author of Little Children, Election, The Abstinence Teacher and the upcoming novel The Leftovers, speaks with ThoughtCast about a writer who fascinates, irritates and inspires him: Flannery O’Connor.
"His relationship with her borders on kinship, and he admires and admonishes her as he would a family member, with whom he shares a bond both genetic and cultural.
"When asked to choose a specific piece of writing that’s had a significant impact on him, Tom chose O’Connor’s short story 'Good Country People,' but then he threw in two others — 'Everything that Rises Must Converge' and 'Revelation.' As Tom explains, these three stories chart O’Connor’s careful trajectory, her unique vision, and her genius.”
Listen here (and check out previous programs): http://www.thoughtcast.org/
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Friend/writer Beth Kephart has succumbed to the spell of Robin Black’s If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, the collection of short stories I feel compelled to force upon everyone I know:
"It had gone on too long. "Robin Black," I kept hearing. "Robin Black's short stories." Urged to read Black by writing friends whose taste I trust, I finally and at long last did, savoring a story or two from her debut collection, "If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This," each day, thinking about her characters in crowded places or while almost alone on this or another strange and unfamiliar street. …Her stories wedge inside and stay."
Read more: http://beth-kephart.blogspot.com/2011/06/if-i-loved-you-i-would-tell-you.html
Buy this fantastic book (if you haven’t already): http://www.amazon.com/Loved-You-Would-Tell-This/dp/0812980689/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1308577384&sr=1-1
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Ann Patchett seems like a handful in this quick Washington Post interview—and self-publishing millionaire Amanda Hocking seems refreshingly down-to-earth in this New York Times Magazine profile.
