PicoBlog

Steve Almond was recently on the show with my co-host Marrie Stone to talk about his most recent book, Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow, and was on the show with me a couple of years ago to talk about his first novel, All the Secrets of the World (links at the bottom). Steve is the author of twelve books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. You can check those out here. His recent books include the novel All the Secrets of the World, which has been optioned for television by 20th Century Fox, and William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life. For four years, Steve hosted the New York Times Dear Sugars podcast with his pal Cheryl Strayed. He is the recipient of a 2022 NEA grant in fiction, and his short stories have been anthologized in the Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Erotica, and Best American Mysteries series. He also publishes crazy, DIY books.

What’s the best writing advice you were ever given?

Say less.

What have you read lately that you wholeheartedly recommend?

I’m in the midst of Kevin Barry’s new novel, The Heart in Winter. It is a continual astonishment. Here’s a sample line (chosen, nearly at random): “She kicked at the frozen hard ground and a petulance of tiny stars flew up in sparks.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME? A “petulance of tiny stars”? Please stop telling me that AI will ever find that shocking, incandescent quartet of words. It will never happen. A human has to make that, and make us see it. Since we’re talking about remarkable prose, I have to shout out Matthew Zapruder’s Story of a Poem, which is my favorite non-fiction book of the past year. Completely blew me away.

Are you a re-reader?

Yeah, I’m a chronic re-reader. My obsession with the novel Stoner is well-documented, but I’ve also re-read Magha Majumdar’s A Burning a few times now, and I’m about to read Natasha Tretheway’s Memorial Road for the third time. It’s a sickness, but when I love a book, I want to understand its mechanisms of enthrallment. It’s a way of making books into teachers. Or allowing them to teach you.

How far will you read before you stop or do you finish every book you begin?

I try not give up until I have good reason to, meaning until the writer proves dependably unreliable, by which I mean confuses me a bunch of times, or gets in the way of the story, or simply hides the story. Sometimes that takes ten pages, sometimes 50 or 100. 

When you begin a draft, does it go straight onto the computer or do you start with a pen or pencil or typewriter, or…..

Straight into the computer. And most often, that’s where it stays, in some state of unhappy incompletion.

What do you do when you hit a wall?

Find a window. Usually by lowering the bar, toggling to a project that arises from some long-held obsession, such as candy or football or Vonnegut, a story I’ve been writing for years without realizing it.

Listen to Marrie’s interview with Steve here and my talk with Steve here.

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