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Reader’s Group Guide
Discussion Questions &
Interview with Sarah Anne Johnson

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Discussion Questions For Conversations with American Women Writers

1. Johnson includes a quote by Eudora Welty at the beginning of the book. Why do you think she chose this particular epigraph? Of the authors Johnson has interviewed, who do you see as “a writer who came from a sheltered life”? What does Eudora Welty mean when she declares, “A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within”?

2. There’s an element of playfulness in Aimee Bender’s writing that is reflected in the descriptions of her writing process. Like Elizabeth Cox, who enjoys “not knowing where it’s going” (p.p.47) when she’s working on a first draft, Bender’s freedom of imagination comes through in her magical prose. How do these writers’ creative processes illuminate their work? Of the writers you’ve read, whose process—of coming up with ideas, of revising—is particularly interesting, or surprising, or obvious? Were there writers whose answers reminded you of their writing style? What does this tell you about how much personality informs an author’s prose?

3. A memorable line from every writer has been culled to serve as a title for each interview. Many of these phrases betray a natural lyricism or profundity, such as Elizabeth McCracken’s “You Must Be Prepared to Break Your Own Heart.” What do you think McCracken is getting at with this remark? What does she mean when she says, “Most of my advice has to do with preparing yourself for depression and heartbreak in the actual writing of the book”? What do you make of the strong bond a writer has for her work? What else did you notice about these chapter headings? Why do you think these particular quotes were chosen?

4. Many of these women mention emotion and intuition when describing the act of writing. Maria Flook confesses, “My first impulse is less an intellectual germ than a psychological or even emotional tempest or affliction” (p.p.72), and that her work, “begins with a gnawing or pecking in the gut” (p.73). Similarly, Lois-Ann Yamanaka tells Johnson, “When I hit that last period on the manuscript, I stop, I lean back, I start crying” (p.219). How do these descriptions alter the perception that writing is primarily an intellectual art form? How do emotion and intuition contribute to the writing process? How do you think the reader’s emotional connection to a book differs from the writer’s?

5.Of the authors interviewed in the book whom you haven’t read, which ones stand out as writers whose work you’d like to explore in the future? Why?

6. A few of the writers here could be labeled as historical novelists. Andrea Barrett is such a writer, and she says she included women in her story The Voyage of Narwhal because she didn’t want to write “the nineteenth-century version of it” (p.13). Similarly, when Nora Okja Keller wrote Comfort Woman, she had to tell the story of women who in previous histories had barely existed at all. Through reading these interviews, what do you understand to be the role of the historical fiction writer, and how does she help us to understand factual history? How do these women retell, or revise, history to include the previously excluded? Do these projects prove, as Jayne Anne Phillips says, that “writing is very political” (p.193)?

7. There are many sources of inspiration for the writers in this collection. Elizabeth Cox mentions listening to symphonies and sonatas while writing her first novel, Familiar Ground; Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni says she gets ideas from eavesdropping on the conversations of strangers; and Sena Jeter Naslund says Ahab’s Wife began when “Suddenly, I had a vision and I heard a voice” (p.158). Confessions of magic and mystery run through all of the interviews, no matter how diverse the authors are. Does the knowledge of an author’s inspiration alter how a book is read and thought about? Is there a similar type of inexplicable magic that occurs when reading fiction?

8. Amy Bloom and Lynn Freed are fans of Jane Austen, and Nora Okja Keller and Lois-Ann Yamanaka cite the importance of Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior. Other women writers are mentioned multiple times, such as the Canadian short story writer Alice Munro, and the seminal Southern author, Flannery O’Connor. After reading this collection, do you think these authors feel part of a strong tradition of American women writers? Can you predict how any of the writers here might influence future women novelists? Does this make you want to read more classic female authors?

9. For a collection of interviews, it’s interesting that Johnson has titled her book Conversations with American Women Writers. Did Johnson’s interviews feel natural and personal, perhaps even reciprocal, as conversations do? Were any of her questions especially helpful to you in understanding a writer’s work? Was there anything she didn’t ask an author that you would have? Do you now feel what Johnson describes in her introduction as “a connection” (p.xiv) with any of these writers?

10. What can be gained from reading interviews that are “representative of the diversity of writers working today” (p.xiv)? What does this varied cross section of American women writers tell us about contemporary American literature? How does Johnson’s goal to speak with writers who “cross boundaries of race, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual preference, and education” (p.xiv) affect the way she leads each interview? Do you think she led some interviews differently than others? If so, how and why?

An Interview Sarah Anne Johnson,
Author of Conversations with American Women Writers

Were you a reader of author interviews before you started conducting them yourself? If so, why did you read them? As a reader, what do you look for in an interview? I started reading author interviews over fifteen years ago when I was still in college, because I was fascinated to hear writers talk about their work. I felt like I was listening in on a private conversation and it was addictive. I discovered the Writers at Work series (p.put out by the Paris Review) in a used bookstore and was thrilled to find Women Writers at Work because I identified more with the experiences of those writers. I was writing in an isolated context, and I found companionship, inspiration and validation in the interviews. It was also captivating to hear the voices of the writers talking about why characters acted as they did, why they chose a particular setting for a beloved story, and so on.
As a reader, I want an interview to reveal both the writer and things about a book I might not otherwise know. For example, learning that Ahab’s Wife came to the author, Sena Jeter Naslund in a voice speaking the first sentence: “Ahab with neither my first husband nor my last.” Naslund also revealed to me why she included women from history such as Margaret Fuller to make the existence of her independent female main character, Una, more credible. After reading Maria Flook’s memoir My Sister Life: The Story of my Sister’s Disappearance I was dying to know how she created the chapters from her sister’s point of view, and in my interview with her, she reveals how this aspect of her memoir works. As a writer, I want to learn about craft and hear how other writers face various challenges and why they make the decisions they do. I want to hear about hard they worked to achieve success, and how they finally made it.

How did you come to conduct your first interview? In what ways did the experience of conducting an interview match your expectations? In what ways did the experience surprise you? I became interested in interviewing authors because after reading interviews I always had questions that weren’t addressed in the interview. I often felt that I could do a better job, or at least conduct an interview that would satisfy my own curiosities. I did my first interview as an MFA student in the Bennington Writing Seminars in 1999. After studying with Lynn Freed, I read all of her books and began to notice through each novel the development of her craft as a writer, and the themes that she returned to again and again. Because I’d studied with her, I had insight into her thinking and what was going on in her work. It was the pressure of these real questions building within me that drove me to engage her in an author interview. I’m not sure what I expected going in, only that I wanted to be more than adequately prepared and not sound stupid. What surprised me was how much fun the interview was and how it solidified my relationship with Lynn. We’ve gone on to do other interviews together and she arranged to have my interview with her in the readers’ guide for her novel House of Women. I was surprised at how much people enjoyed the interview, and that inspired me to keep going.

How do you prepare for an interview? How have your preparation methods changed as you've done more interviews? Can you give examples of occasions when careful preparation has paid off in particularly surprising or satisfying ways? I do a lot of research that includes reading all of an author’s work both inside and outside their usual genre. With Lynn, this meant reading her novels, short stories that appeared in magazines and literary journals, articles she’d written, articles about her, and interviews with her. I immerse myself in the work of an author and let the work invade my brain. By infusing myself with the author’s work, the questions flow organically. As I’ve done more interviews, my reading and research has become more focused. I know more what will make for evocative questions, and I recognize more easily issues that I want to pursue in the conversation. The research always pays off. The unexpected aspect of this is how it relaxes the writers. They’re so used to being interviewed by journalists who haven’t read their work or who aren’t well prepared, that if I do my homework and demonstrate a real interest in their work by asking intelligent questions, they truly appreciate it. My preparation and interest allows them to relax and enjoy the conversation and they’re more likely to open up.

Is it difficult to secure the cooperation of the writers you want to interview? Have you ever been turned down? What sorts of concerns or expectations do the writers typically bring to the interview? What techniques have you developed to put them at their ease or to reassure them about the process?
It hasn’t been difficult to secure interviews. So far, the only people who’ve said no are those either in the throes of finishing a project, or those who just won’t do interviews, such as Alice Monroe and Annie Proulx. I query them every now and again in the hopes that they’ll say yes. I don’t’ take it personally if an author is unavailable. I go to the next author on my list. Most writers have to do interviews in order to promote their work, and because I’ve been publishing interviews on a regular basis and have affiliations with magazines such as The Writer and The Writer’s Chronicle, the publicists usually push the interview through because they know it will get into print.
I think that writers come to interviews like anyone else, afraid of sounding stupid, being misquoted or being asked personal questions they don’t want to answer; an interviewer who hasn’t prepared is more likely to represent the author poorly. I let the author know ahead of time that they’re being taped and that they’ll be able to see the interview and tighten up language and make clarifications before it’s published, which they find reassuring. Writers aren’t public speakers. They’re used to having years to work on a piece of writing, and the interview format can be intimidating, even to those who are used to it. I’ve found that the thing that puts writers most at ease is asking thought-provoking, intelligent questions.

Can you comment on the logistics of interviews: setting, tape vs. notes, formal vs. informal, follow-up, etc. What are your own preferences? Do the subjects themselves ever have preferences on these issues? To what extent are authors likely to set "ground rules" of various kinds?
If I can meet with an author in person, I do because there’s a degree of kinship to be gained in meeting face to face, though often this isn’t possible because of geography. I always go into an interview with a comprehensive list of questions. I tape record the interview so that I can relax and be present to the conversation. Over time, I’ve come to prefer the telephone interview because I’m more relaxed in my own home and the authors have been, too. Imagine the author sitting at home with a cup of tea and talking freely on the phone. Email interviews can work well if you do it right and some authors will only do email interviews. The Lynn Freed interview in this book is the only one conducted by email. We achieved a conversational feel by passing it back and forth. First I sent her a long list of questions, which she answered and sent back to me. In reading through her responses, I inserted more questions and sent it back again. We went on like this until we were done. The only “ground rules” I’ve encountered were when I visited an author in her home and she asked that I not describe her home in the interview. That wasn’t something I was interested in anyways, so it didn’t inhibit the interview at all. It was fine.

How do you maintain a balance between following the questions that you have prepared in advance and following the flow or logic of the discussion? Do you ever find the interview going off in a surprising direction? Is it sometimes necessary to reassert control over the direction of the interview, and if so, when and how do you do so?
I view my list of questions as a road map. I might get off course and follow many winding roads off to the side, but when a line of dialogue reaches it natural conclusion, I return to the map and ask the next question on the list. Often a single response will answer several questions, and in this case I just work my way down the list. I don’t feel the need to assert control over the interview. If the author wants to run on, I let them talk because I’m generally in no rush. I want to hear everything they have to say. If I was doing the interviews on a radio show or on some other specific format, then I’d have to assert myself more, but in this sort of interview, the more material you can get in your conversation, the better. As far as surprising directions interviews have taken, the first thing that comes to mind was when I interviewed Sena Jeter Naslund, she was so candid about her early years of trying to master her craft. She was intent on sharing how difficult it was for her to learn to write fiction, and I found her openness surprising given the success of her recent novels. Often people don’t want to admit that they were ever struggling artists, but hearing how hard it was from someone so successful was very inspiring to me. And then, in a more general sense, I was surprised and pleased by the consistent generosity of the writers in sharing the inner-workings of their writing lives, in taking time away from their work to submit themselves to an interview.

How do the interviews that are collected in your book differ from the more journalistic interviews that a reader might see in the newspaper? How is the experience of the two types different for the reader? For the subject? For the interviewer?
The interviews in Conversations with American Women Writers are not limited in length and so they explore the writer and their work with more depth and scope. Newspaper interviews are usually limited by a strict word count, and often journalists are overworked and don’t have time to do the kind of preparation required to conduct an in-depth interview. Newspaper interviews are light and often tie the book or author into a current event or local angle. My interviews seek to inform readers about the inner-workings of the writer’s process and to add insight into the books readers love. The interviews in Conversations seek to engage readers more deeply and draw them into the author’s work, or if they’ve all ready enjoyed the author’s work, the interview will provide insights that the reader didn’t previously have. These interviews will be great companions to book discussion groups in that they reveal the writer and aspects of their work that a reader could not otherwise know.

In the introduction to your book, you describe author interviews and other forms of literary journalism as aspects of building a "writing life." Can you elaborate on this? What sorts of benefits accrue to the interviewer in this process?
Building a literary life is critical for a writer to sustain any kind of writing life. If you attend an MFA program, your literary life is created for you. You have mentors, colleagues, community, stimulation, structure, deadlines, and real work to be involved in. Often upon leaving a writing program, writers experience the “six month slump” which is a bout of depression when faced with having to write without the support of the program. If a writer hasn’t attended an MFA program, they generally hunger for some kind of community or context in which to work. Through interviewing authors, I’ve been able to recreate for myself that context: a literary life like the my writing program provided. I’m constantly meeting writers who serve as mentors through our conversation and work on the interview, I’m immersed in critical study that informs and fuels my creative work, I build relationships with editors, and I publish interviews and get feedback on my work. In addition to the fulfillment of the work itself, I enjoy being a character out in the world, and find that this work, rather than taking away from creative writing, supports and sustains it in ways I couldn’t have imagined prior to getting involved in it.
Another aspect to building a literary life occurs through publishing. You never know who’s out there reading your work and taking notice. I’ve landed a job, been offered teaching gigs, and met influential people in the literary world because they’d seen my interviews in The Writer’s Chronicle and The Writer.

You also offer workshops in "how to conduct an author interview." Can you describe these workshops? Who attends them and with what sorts of goals and expectations? The workshop is called The Art of the Author Interview and it teaches the nuts and bolts of conducting interviews, from making contact with the writer and doing the research to composing the questions and conducting the interview, to transcribing, editing and publishing a finished piece. In addition, the workshop focuses on how to use each phase of the interview process to help build a literary life. I find that students walk away as enthused about building their literary lives as they are about contacting an author for an interview. I’ve had all kinds of students that include writers, journalists, radio talk-show hosts, social workers who are active readers and want to get more involved in the literary arts, writers working on projects that require interviewing various characters. I’ve had students interested in interviewing artists in other fields such as directors, screenwriters, songwriters, visual artists, playwrights, and so on. Students expect to learn about conducting the interview, and are surprised to learn that there’s so much more opportunity available to them through this work. They come in feeling both that an interview is an easy thing, and at the same time, afraid to go out and get started, or if they’ve already been doing interviews, they want to improve their skills. They leave feeling like they have a handle on what to do to generate a provocative interview and how to deal with the normal set of nerves one experiences sitting across from an admired writer. The students I’ve had who want to publish, are publishing. It’s very gratifying for me to see and I think it’s important that there are more people doing this critical work of interviewing authors in a more thoughtful way.

Aren’t you afraid that by giving away your secrets, you’re creating competition for yourself?
I hope to create competition for myself because that will drive me to improve and deepen my own work. At the same time, I believe that there’s room enough for everyone to do in-depth author interviews. We are each distinct individuals and will bring our own idiosyncrasies to the work, and there are countless authors at work today and so few real enthusiasts doing the interviews. The interviews in The Paris Review continue to be the most interesting and richest. I also feel so inspired by the benefits I’ve enjoyed through interviewing that I want to share these advantages with other writers, and in fact, sharing the benefits with other writers has become one of the joys of this work.

Recent years have seen tremendous growth in the number of book discussion groups, author readings, and similar activities available to booklovers. Do you see a growing interest in author interviews among average readers as part of this trend?
I’m amazed at the interest in authors and author interviews. Because of Oprah’s Book Club and the plethora of book clubs on commercial television (p.Good Morning America, The Today Show, Martha Stewart), average readers are reading literary fiction and people who never read before are buying literature in the supermarket. It’s phenomenal. All of the morning talk shows have book clubs now and it’s quite common for people to be in book groups or discussing Steinbeck’s East of Eden in the lunch line. Because of our cultural immersion in literature, there’s more of a need than ever before for insightful interviews that go beyond the typical newspaper interview, which is largely based on the writer’s press kit. Readers want to engage more fully with what they read, and they want author interviews that reveal the writer and the magic of the work. I don’t think readers are content with being talked down to, or with interviews in which the interviewer is not prepared. There’s a real appreciation for thoughtful work. That’s why I encourage my students to go out there and get interviewing and seek publication. If they put in real effort, their work will far outshine the average interview available to readers today.