Your least favorite aspects of writing?
I tend to write long and tighten up later. This allows me to weave in all the best details that I have gathered over the course of my research, but I always hate “killing my babies,” as we writers call it when we have to edit out certain parts that we love, but ultimately don’t have room for.
Who are some of your favorite authors/books?
For fiction: Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass;
Michael Connelly, The Poet; Jess Walter, Citizen Vince and The Zero;
Ethan Canin, Ann Patchett, and Amy Hempel. For non-fiction: Tracy Kidder, Home Town.
What are you reading right now?
A series of Sandra Brown thrillers. She is good at building suspense and tension, and I like the pacing of her storytelling, as she layers in the back story without slowing down the momentum of the present-day narration.
If you could have a dinner party and invite five authors — dead or alive — who would they be and what would you serve them?
Lewis Carroll, Tracy Kidder, Henry James, Mary Gaitskill and Elinor Lipman. I don’t know what I’d serve them, but I think I’d be too fascinated to eat, and I’m guessing most of them would rather drink anyway.
What is a book that you wish you could say that you had written and why?
Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, because it is a highly complex and intellectual book, but it can also be read by children and enjoyed on different levels by all different age groups.
What is the greatest piece of advice (for writing and/or just living) that you have heard?
Ass in chair. People who say, “I’m a writer,” or “I want to write a book,” but take no action to do so, drive me crazy. It takes great discipline and a willingness to be alone – a lot – to be a professional writer.
Article comments
1 - Caitlin Rother
It's Caitlin Rother not Caitlin Roth...
2 - Christopher Rose
Caitlin, the typos have been fixed and the editor droid responsible disassembled.
3 - Alan Kurtz
What? Blogcritics publishes an interview with an author and misspells her name! If only there were editor droids at BC, they'd do a much better job than the primate "editors." Don't blame technology, blame entrenched human incompetence.
4 - Christopher Rose
Everybody is fallible, Alan, but sensible people just fix mistakes and move on.
5 - Alan Kurtz
And censors just delete my comments and move on. Business as usual.
6 - Christopher Rose
Alan, If you can't refrain from making personal attacks, then your comments will be edited or deleted. If you don't, they won't.
I'm sure you have grasped the principle, if not the practice, so the ball is in your court...
7 - Alan Kurtz
And what about the unsubstantiated accusation against me by a BC "editor" in ΒΆ1 of comment #33 here? You give your fellow editors a free pass to attack me, but then uphold the strictest standards in censoring my own comments. If there's a principle involved here, then you're mistaken: I haven't grasped it.
8 - Christopher Rose
That issue is still under review, Alan, and I will make my decision as to what I consider the appropriate course of action in due course.
For your information, should you find yourself the target of what you may consider an infringement of the comments guidelines in the future, your case would be reinforced if you refrained from entering into debate with the potential infringer and contacted me as your first response.
9 - Alan Kurtz
OK, so I contacted you after I replied online. But then you failed to respond to my email! What a place.
10 - Christopher Rose
I haven't responded to your email because I don't have anything to say yet. When I do, I will.
11 - Alan Kurtz
Out of common courtesy, you might at least have acknowledged my email. But then, you have none of that, do you?
12 - Christopher Rose
Yes, I possibly could have done that, but I was rather expecting to be able to respond to you more swiftly than has in fact turned out to be the case.
As to common courtesy, I think reading all the comments we make here on this site will reveal which of us is the most civil...
13 - April
I am the writer/author of this interview, and I deeply apologize for any misspelling. I had caught myself and corrected "Roth" to "Rother" before hitting submit, but obviously missed another somewhere. Again, I am deeply sorry for this error.
April
14 - Christopher Rose
Don't worry too much, April, we all make mistakes and it has now been sorted out.