Monday, November 18, 2002
Thisbe Nissen is one of my favorite new authors. She broke onto the scene with her collection of stories, Out of the Girls Room and Into the Night, and followed up with a fun novel, The Good People of New York. Yesterday I found this lenghty interview with her:
http://www.identitytheory.com/people/birnbaum25.html
I like her response to whether or not she's prepared for success:
"when Knopf bought this book, I was—I don't think there's any other way to describe it—except I felt such relief that I was not going to have to go scrounging around to pay my rent for another year. It was this feeling of, "Oh god, thank you." Like I can just breathe a little more easily and just get to writing and not have to worry so much about everything. The total elation—sure there are moments of total elation—there those really nice moments of "I'm okay." You know, Sally Fields at the Academy Awards, "You really like me!" Those are all tempered with feelings of "I suck. This is a fluke, I will never do this again. I'm going to be a has-been. The next one will surely be crap, if this one's any good at all." Or that feeling when someone writes a lousy review and you think, "Ach, this book really must suck, and everyone who is buying it is probably dumb anyway. How did I pull the wool over their eyes?" It must be born into the fabric of my being that I must question absolutely everything."
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http://www.identitytheory.com/people/birnbaum25.html
I like her response to whether or not she's prepared for success:
"when Knopf bought this book, I was—I don't think there's any other way to describe it—except I felt such relief that I was not going to have to go scrounging around to pay my rent for another year. It was this feeling of, "Oh god, thank you." Like I can just breathe a little more easily and just get to writing and not have to worry so much about everything. The total elation—sure there are moments of total elation—there those really nice moments of "I'm okay." You know, Sally Fields at the Academy Awards, "You really like me!" Those are all tempered with feelings of "I suck. This is a fluke, I will never do this again. I'm going to be a has-been. The next one will surely be crap, if this one's any good at all." Or that feeling when someone writes a lousy review and you think, "Ach, this book really must suck, and everyone who is buying it is probably dumb anyway. How did I pull the wool over their eyes?" It must be born into the fabric of my being that I must question absolutely everything."
