If I weren't writing fiction, I'd be a journalist. And if I wasn't a journalist, I'd be unemployed.
Zoe Heller
Author of Notes on a Scandal and The Believers.
I'm not guilty about any of my literary pleasures.
Where are you right now?
On my sofa.
Where do you write?
Currently, at a desk in my front hall (an extremely unsatisfactory arrangement). Usually in a small office down the hall from my apartment.
How do you write?
Every day from 9.30 to 3.00 with frequent breaks to wander about, eat, do laundry, etc.
What keeps you writing?
The vainglorious notion that I have things to tell the world.
Who do you write for?
Different people at different times: my mother, my husband, other writers whose work I admire.
Do you discuss your work with anyone?
A little bit with my husband. When it's done, with my editors.
How do you know if your work is good?
You apply the same critical faculties that you use when reading other people's work.
Do you have any unwritten characters in mind?
Yes, about three or four
Which book do you wish you'd written?
'A Legacy' by Sybille Bedford - one of the unsung classics of the twentieth century.
What is your literary guilty pleasure?
I'm not guilty about any of my literary pleasures.
Which writer made you want to write?
George Eliot and my father, who was a screenwriter.
Who's the most exciting author writing today?
Joseph O'Neill, Nathan Englander, Zadie Smith, Tom Stoppard, Tobias Woolff. Excitement seems like the wrong word - but I'm always interested to see what these writers will do next.
If you weren't writing you'd be...?
If I weren't writing fiction, I'd be a journalist. And if I wasn't a journalist, I'd be unemployed.
What next?
A short story and then a novel.
Tuesday, 13 January, 2009
In How I write
- David Malouf
- Janice Galloway
- Michael G. Jacob and Daniela De Gregorio
- Alaa Al Aswany
- Nick Laird
- T. C. Boyle
- Nicolas Fargues
- Zoe Heller
- Shalom Auslander
- James Salter
- Ali Smith
- James Frey
- Linn Ullmann
- Julian Barnes
- Joe Dunthorne
- Richard Milward
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Everything You Know
Notes on a Scandal
The Believers
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