Katie O'Reilly

On “My Father, The Pornographer”: An Interview with Chris Offutt

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“When I first started [writing] fiction, I avoided sex scenes because there aren’t that many ways to write about sex, and I did not want to write pornographically like my dad, so I just sort of skipped over those parts. I eventually realized, this is a part of life, and I just have to figure out a way to write about it, so I use metaphor more to describe sex.”

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On “Poor Your Soul”: An Interview with Mira Ptacin

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“As a writer, there’s always the whole self-induced pressure of whether you wanna market yourself, and build your brand and your buzz. But on social media, I never find myself drifting toward the yes-and-no debate of abortion, nor fighting for it. I’m pro-choice, but I think I make more of an impact when I’m writing about one individual at a time. Because I think abortion is a personal decision for everyone, and I don’t like to generalize it. As a writer I’m more concerned with individual stories, no matter what they’re about. You can’t lump people into one category.”

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On “After a While You Just Get Used to It”: An Interview with Gwendolyn Knapp

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“I do like that people read my writing as Southern and not just as that of a bland white person. But I feel like if you are a writer who’s Southern, your sensibilities should probably just be organic. I grew up poor in Florida—I have a very specific sort of family—and the characters in those stories are deeply embedded in my story, and in who I am. I feel like Southerners deal with different situations and circumstances than people in other parts of the world—we have such distinct issues with poverty and social issues that don’t get addressed because you’re dealing with crazy belief systems.”

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On “Home is Burning”: An Interview with Dan Marshall

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“I think I was writing the blog to make my friends laugh—the content was definitely frattier, more about the easy jokes—but I tried to make the book more widely accessible. The book-writing process was more about picking the most important moments, wrapping them around a theme, and framing the journey—not to sound like some pretentious little art dickhead. But, it was about giving the story shape. It took a few drafts to get there, but I finally started to realize, ‘Okay, this is really a story about somebody and his siblings going through an intense situation and being forced through it to grow up and take on a little more responsibility.'”

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On “Pieces of My Mother”: An Interview with Melissa Cistaro

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“Geneticists, after all, are studying to see whether there are genes for empathy. I kept asking myself how people are really wired, what traits from our ancestors we carry. This motif is about all the little things we don’t know or aren’t told, or that are kept from us, but that we carry with us—the pieces of us that feel not right, or that are confusing. I’m very much fascinated with the trauma or grief that’s conceivably locked into our bodies—I believe in all that. And in many ways, those women in my past helped me tell my story. I think about them all the time—the choices they did and didn’t have, and how sad and complicated parts of their lives were. So in some ways I felt like I was writing the book to honor these women in my history.”

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On “The World’s Largest Man”: An Interview with Harrison Scott Key

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“It took me ten years to figure out how to write funny the way I could talk funny. Doing improv or standup or making people laugh at a party or an open-mic night—that kind of humor came naturally to me, but writing funny was so hard. I struggled with that balance between seriousness and silliness—I didn’t want to write myself into a corner, where I could only be silly or lighthearted. I felt like there had to be a way to have a legitimate mind and still make readers laugh, to say earnestly true things, and not just ironically true things.”

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On “The World Is On Fire”: An Interview with Joni Tevis

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“Music definitely informs my writing process. I played the piano throughout my youth and still do. I also played the French horn throughout high school and college, and I thought that was going to be my life—I thought I’d become a band director. That could’ve been a great life, but then in college, English got me, so I started down this road, and ended up double-majoring in English and history. But still, I love music. It’s probably one of the art forms we’re most comfortable with; it just informs so much of our lives. We sing along to the radio without thinking about it. But if we investigate those songs that matter to us? That can be a rich vein of material.”

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On “Witness to Change”: An Interview with Sybil Haydel Morial

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“I think not enough people are writing about the Civil Rights Movement—those who lived through it are passing on, and many of them did not document their stories. But one person’s involvement in a period is just as important as an overarching history—I think there needs to be more of that. It encourages individuals to be courageous and work to correct what’s wrong in their countries, their lives. I think curious students and history buffs will read it, but above all, I hope it will empower African-Americans and women.”

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On “All the Wild That Remains”: An Interview with David Gessner

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Many environmentalist-minded readers believe the nature writer of today’s turbulent, climate-changing times should function as both artist and activist. If David Gessner’s All the Wild That Remains (Norton, April 2015) is any indicator, the modern nature writer indeed should embody both roles—and could even expand his or her repertoire and master memoir, essay, biography, travelogue, and/or literary criticism. Via these and more seamlessly braided forms, Gessner’s book calls readers to action, inspiring outdoors-appreciating-yet-non-activist readers like myself, for instance, to question our own sense of place in this world.

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