"I can do them at odd hours and I can correct myself." – Garrison Keillor, writer and Prairie Home Companion star, in explaining why he favors e-mail interviews over the phone variety these days.
The e-book angle: So will the day come when Q&A’s are built into e-books for promo purposes? A possibility: "Interview me, just so I can include the results in the book"?
IF there’s time to write a book: "I used to have self-discipline when I wrote on an Underwood typewriter," Keillor says, "but that was long ago and now I write on a laptop which (it so happens) is online and so temptation is just a click away. There’s e-mail to be checked and various and sundry to be Googled and so the day passes. There is no point in setting goals. I am just a woodchip on the raging river of life, like everyone else."
Not to beat up on Keillor—and a question: Methinks he’s exaggerating—as his usual self-deprecating self. Still, a question arise here. What kind of creative writer thrives with Google and other Net tools? The demon-researcher species of fiction writer might actually fare better despite the distractions, especially with Net tools such as Google Maps Street View. So might those who thrive on feedback.
Related: Blogs and creativity: F. Scott Fitzgerald as a WordPress guy (black and white photo).
Speaking of literary legends: New York Times Q&A with Gore Vidal, who will be publishing a new essay collection next week.
And a look at a Selectric-lover of a writer: The Times’ profile of Alan Furst, the spy novelist whose disdain of computers fits in perfectly with novels set just before, during and after World War II.
What is email address for Garrison Keilor?
my daughter in edina told me you wrote books.
tell me what to read.
i don’t like fiction, but will try it if you say so.
do you know nouri roubini? you should.
roubini is not funny, but you both
share, with the jokes in the newyorker,
‘the ring of truth’ (google book, pbs series
by what’s his name at mit.
thanks
Romney song: He only had one grandfather, one grandfather was all that he ever had, he only had one grand dad. His mothers father was his fathers father. He only had one grandfather, one grandfather was all that he ever had. he only had one grand dad. He is an only one grandfather________ lad. Isn’t that sad? He only had one grand dad.