“On paper, best-selling author Amy Tan’s teenage years — having graduated from high school in a Swiss resort town nestled near the French Alps — are worthy of envy.

“It sounds so hoighty-toighty. … But we got to Switzerland through a can of old Dutch cleanser,” Tan told a large crowd Thursday night at Purdue University.

The author of The Joy Luck Club, which explores the relationship between Chinese mothers and Chinese-American daughters, was relaying the story of how her mother decided to uproot the family from California to Holland.

The decision was made after Daisy Tan, described as a “germophobe” by her daughter, found the cleaner under the kitchen sink.

The tale was one of several Amy Tan shared during her talk before hundreds at Elliot Hall of Music, the third installment in the Purdue University Libraries Distinguished Lecture Series.having graduated from high school in a Swiss resort town nestled near the French Alps — are worthy of envy.

“It sounds so hoighty-toighty. … But we got to Switzerland through a can of old Dutch cleanser,” Tan told a large crowd Thursday night at Purdue University.

“The author of The Joy Luck Club, which explores the relationship between Chinese mothers and Chinese-American daughters, was relaying the story of how her mother decided to uproot the family from California to Holland.

“The decision was made after Daisy Tan, described as a ‘germophobe’ by her daughter, found the cleaner under the kitchen sink.

“The tale was one of several Amy Tan shared during her talk before hundreds at Elliot Hall of Music, the third installment in the Purdue University Libraries Distinguished Lecture Series.”

Read Sophia Voravong’s Article here.

Publisher’s Weekly has an interesting and (very) short interview with publisher Shaye Areheart, discussing debut novels and Robert James Waller.

PW: You’ve published several debut novels over the past few seasons. Do you have a special affinity for publishing first-time authors, and what are the challenges involved in that?

SA: I think because we have published so many debut novels and have had some notable success with them that agents think of us for those books. The challenge, of course, is always to make people pay attention and to get them to actually read the book. Because with a fine debut novelist you’re saying this book is great, this story is wonderful, these characters are affecting, please, please read this book. If you can get people to read something, the chances are good that they’ll say, yeah, this really is quite wonderful; or at least they’ll give it a fair chance.

Link

 Booker-winning author Kiran Desai talks about how her Indian heritage and identity shaped her writing.

Desai, who is 35, lived in India until she was 14, when she and her mother left first for the UK and then for the US, where she has lived ever since. However, she still holds on to her Indian passport.  “Now I could become an American citizen, but then George Bush won and I’ve just been unable to bring myself to do so,” she explains, half-apologetically. “But again that’s silly because of course I pay taxes there and don’t vote, so it’s hypocritical in a way, but it held me back.”

Increasingly, too, she is unsure that she would really want to surrender her Indian citizenship. “I feel less like doing it every year because I realise that I see everything through the lens of being Indian. It’s not something that has gone away - it’s something that has become stronger. As I’ve got older, I have realised that I can’t really write without that perspective.”

Read the full interview here.

U.S. novelist Walter Mosley, who is most widely known for his crime fiction, says if you’ve got a novel in you, write it.  Mosley, 54, will next year release a 100-page book called “This Year You Write Your Novel” giving people advice on how to write a novel in a year.

Q: You produce about three or four books a year. How do you approach your writing?

A: “When I wake up, the first thing I do is to write for two to three hours. The ideas are unconscious. Every time you spend two or three hours powerfully creating you set off all the depth chargers in your conscience that you are unaware of. It has always been the case for me.”

Q: What tips do you give people?

A: “You have to write every day — for at least one-and-a-half hours but the ideal is three.  You have to write in an unrestricted fashion. Don’t procrastinate or feel guilty about the people you are writing about in the book. You have to be able to say things you really feel.”

Read the Yahoo News interview here.

The novels of Jeff VanderMeer fall somewhere between science fiction, urban surrealism, dark fantasy, magical realism, and even horror comedy. VanderMeer’s literary range becomes immediately apparent when you consider that he’s been “a two-time winner (six-time finalist) of the World Fantasy Award, as well as a past finalist for the Hugo Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, the International Horror Guild Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.”

VanderMeer: I get my inspiration from real life as much as possible, and then from history books and then from other writers. I find Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, for example, stultifyingly boring because of this idea of speculative urban design. Although I like the idea of a setting also being a character, it has to also be a character – not be the only thing in the book.

Sometimes I will use authors as something to react against – and say, well, okay: this is an interesting design for a city and this is an interesting design for a city, but neither of these actually work. By kind of cross-correlating them and looking at the differences I can figure out where it is that I want to go.

Link to the full interview at BLDGblog (via Boingboing)

Sarah Bradford is a historian and biographer. She is the bestselling author of several biographies including “Disraeli,” selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; “George VI,” and “Princess Grace.” Her most recent biography, The New York Times bestseller “Elizabeth,” received praise by everyone from John Updike in the New Yorker to The Wall Street Journal and Time magazine.

Chat Moderator: Please tell us a bit about your book, “America’s Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis” and how it differs from other biographies about Jackie.

Sarah Bradford: Number one, it differs in the length of time. And number two, the range of interviewees — particularly people like her sister, Lee Radziwill, who have never spoken to writers before. I think this has given me insights to a new Jackie that most people don’t know about.

Read the CNN interview here.

He famously fell out with the Prime Minister over what he saw as the victimisation of his close friend, Peter Mandelson, but the former journalist saw enough of politics at work during the time he spent with Mr Blair to inspire his new book, Imperium, set in Cicero’s Rome. He insists, though, it’s not New Labour in togas.

Read the article here.

Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction is a monthly half-hour television series about the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. The show was started in 1989 and has run (almost) regularly ever since.

Each episode of Fast Forward features an in-depth interview with a professional writer, artist, editor, or filmmaker who has created work that can be described as SF, Fantasy, and/or Horror.

We are ever so slooowly adding previous Fast Forward interviews [in video format] to this site. We are also posting low bandwidth audio only versions so that folks with dial-up connections can get easier access.

The free archives include clips of interviews with a stunning selection of famous authors, including Terry Pratchett, Robert Jordan, George R. R. Martin, Neil Gaiman and many more. For some reason, the video clips weren’t available when I tried to view them, but the audio clips are working fine.

Link (via The Friends of English Magic)