A couple of quotes from the conversation:
"Iceland is really just the setting. For me, there's this particular phenomenon that's going on and it could have occurred anywhere, really. It's the notion of carrying within you everything that has happened to you in the past, and bringing it into a new environment, and then having to deal with your daily life while being haunted by everything that you're carrying around inside of you. Now, since publishing this here and doing a lot of book talks here in this country, I have sort of learned what the story is about in psychological terms because people have told me that they, too, have experienced this notion of carrying something around inside you. I have people telling me how they carry Iowa inside themselves all their lives, even though they never were in Iowa, but their mothers were."
"[W]riting a novel is way more important than publishing a novel. [Laughs] I'm working on a third novel now and just solving the riddle of how these characters interact and how this is all going to work out, that is my big task. Publishing?... I don't think people should be writing with publishing in mind. If you only have publishing in mind, then you're going to be losing a lot of the experience of really producing something that you are happy with yourself. The gap between these two is huge."
> You can also listen in anytime to the podcast of this conversation here.
> More podcasts and transcripts from my Conversations with Other Writers are here. The latest in this occasional series is my conversation with historian M.M. McAllen about her magnifcent narrative history of 1860s Mexico, Maximilian and Carlota. A transcript of that podcast will be available shortly. Other podcasts in this series include conversations with Rose Mary Salum, Sergio Troncoso, Sara Mansfield Taber, Michael K. Schuessler, and Edward Swift.
Meanwhile, I am working on podcast #21 in the projected 24 podcast series, Marfa Mondays, exploring Marfa, Texas and environs, which is apropos of my book in-progress about the Trans-Pecos. Listen in to any one or all of those 20 "Marfa Mondays" podcasts here.
P.S. My every-other-monthly-ish newsletter with updates on podcasts, publications and upcoming workshops is going out to subscribers soon. I welcome you to sign up here. It's an automatic opt-in /opt-out anytime via mailchimp.com, and yes, it is free.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
