American - Writer | October 17, 1961 -
The short story is kind of a precision tool. It allows me a certain type of freedom to go in and out of the American landscape, without having to commit myself to a full-length novel. I find a lot of novels out there very boring.
David Means
FreedomMyselfMeStoryAmerican
I find the middle classes kind of boring. The middle class has kind of been beaten like a dead horse by fictional writers. It's old news, and literature is supposed to bring new news, and for me, I feel I have to go as far out as I can to try and tell the kind of stories I want to tell.
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I think all good short stories are about what it means to tell a good story.
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I don't think you could write fiction or create art unless you are sort of a positive person.
PositiveArtThinkYouCreateWrite
I think a good story can do as much as a novel; not the exact same thing, of course, but just as much artistically. They're different beasts, but to tackle an expansive country like the United States, you're either going to write a big novel, or go in to various points on the map and write stories or poems.
GoodStoryThinkYouCountryGo
Alice Munro is an atomic writer blasting doors into narrative time.
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Typically, I spend a lot of time - mostly in the morning - kind of drifting, reading, walking down along the river, looking at photographs, or even driving around. Then, if I'm lucky, I get to work in the early afternoon, one way or another.
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I write first drafts by hand, often out of the house somewhere, and then, when I've got a draft, type it up and let it sit, sometimes for a long time, and then when I'm ready, I work on revision.
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Iggy Pop is a pure Michigan product - gritty, smart, but not afraid of looking stupid or foolish. His father was once a high school English teacher. I love Iggy as a physical entity, sinewy, twisty - even in old age - an embodiment of rock and roll history.
LoveFatherAgeTeacherHistory
There is this idea of 'north,' and if you're from Michigan and you wandered the Upper Peninsula, you know what it feels like. The sky has a particular vibe, a coldness, stretching into the upper reaches of Canada.
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A kiss is often about the future and the past. A lost dream, about the discretion of the idealism.
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My characters - no, make that most characters - are seeking the shelter of narrative resolution, a place of quiet and grace.
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