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Conversational Routines in English: Convention and Creativity (Studies in Language and Linguistics)
by Karin AijmerIt is surprising how much of everyday conversation consists of repetitive expressions such as 'thank you', 'sorry', would you mind?' and their many variants. However commonplace they may be, they do have important functions in communication.This thorough study draws upon original data from the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English to provide a discoursal and pragmatic account of the more common expressions found in conversational routines, such as apologising, thanking, requesting and offering.The routines studied in this book range from conventionalized or idiomatized phrases to those which can be generated by grammar. Examples have been taken from face-to-face conversations, radio discussions and telephone conversations, and transcription has been based upon the prosodic system of Crystal (1989).An extensive introduction provides the theory and methodology for the book and discusses the criteria for fixedness, grammatical analysis, and pragmatic functions of conversational routines which are later applied to the phrases. Following chapters deal specifically with phrases for thanking, apologising, indirect requests, and discourse-organising markers for conversational routines, on the basis of empirical investigation of the data from the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English.
Conversationally Speaking: Tested New Ways To Increase your Personal and Social Effectiveness
by Alan GarnerMore than a million people have learned the secrets of effective conversation using Conversationally Speaking. This revised edition provides more ways to improve conversational skills by asking questions that promote conversation, learning how to listen so that others will be encouraged to talk, reducing anxiety in social situations and more.
Conversations About Illness: Family Preoccupations With Bulimia (Everyday Communication Series)
by Wayne A. BeachThe grandmother granddaughter conversation examined in this book makes explicit what the detailed study of interaction reveals about two social problems--"bulimia" and "grandparent caregiving." For the first time, systematic attention is given to interactional activities through which family members display ordinary yet contradictory concerns about health and illness: * a grandmother's (who is also a registered nurse) attempts to initiate, confront, and remedy her granddaughter's lack of responsibility in admitting bulimic "problems" and committing to professional medical assistance; * a granddaughter's methods for avoiding ownership of the alleged bulimic problems by discounting the legitimacy of her grandmother's expressed concerns. Through analysis of a single audio-recorded and transcribed conversation, Wayne Beach reveals the altogether pervasive and often troubled talk surrounding family medical predicaments. From a careful review of extant theories that seek to explain eating disorders and grandparent caregiving, it becomes clear that an overreliance on self-report data has promoted underspecified understandings of "social contexts" -- conceptualizations void of real time practices and interactional consequences mirroring how families manage their daily affairs and understandings regarding health and illness. In contrast, this volume draws attention to family members' embodied interactional activities. Here it is seen, for example, how methods for expressing concern and caring by individuals may nevertheless eventuate in interactional troubles and problems between family members. The analysis reveals that, while displays of basic concerns for others' health and well being are routine occurrences between family members in home environments -- and of course, across friendship and various support networks -- even the delicate and well-intended management of such occasions guarantees neither agreement on the nature of the alleged "problems" nor, consequently, a commitment to seek professional help as a means of remedying a medical condition. In such cases, the very existence of an illness is itself a matter of some contention to be interactionally worked out. And it is perhaps both predictable and symptomatic that those explicitly denying (or as with the granddaughter, indirectly failing to admit) that problematic health behaviors exist, also somehow let it be made known that far too much attention is being given to possibilities and consequences of illness in the first instance. Implications of this investigation extend well beyond "bulimia" and "grandparent caregiving" to a vast array of casual and institutional involvements between family members, friends, and bureaucratic representatives such as those involved in long-term caregiving, dealing with cancer and Alzheimer's disease, or conducting psychiatric interviews and HIV/AIDS counseling sessions. Findings regarding the interactionally organized nature of talk about bulimia, as well as the problematic nature of caregiving, will be of value to researchers focusing on language and social interaction, health practitioners, and families alike. This volume includes the full transcript of the conversation in the case study. A copy of the audio-recording is available for classroom adoption and/or personal purchase by contacting: Wayne A. Beach, School of Communication, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182-4516.
Conversations Around Semiotic Engineering
by Simone Diniz Junqueira Barbosa Karin BreitmanDemonstrating the influence of Semiotic Engineering in Human-Computer Interaction, this book focuses on the work of one of the pioneers of the field - Clarisse de Souza - and her influence on this broad and wide-ranging area of research. It contains a selection of essays written by those that have worked with her over the years and will encourage readers to extend their reading and research in this area. Clarisse de Souza, widely known as the founder of Semiotic Engineering, will reach her 60th birthday in 2017, and the Semiotic Engineering Research Group that she founded will also celebrate its 20th anniversary. A key figure in HCI, Clarisse argued that human-computer interaction enables computer-mediated communication between the designer and the user at the point of interaction thus enabling and facilitating designers in understanding who their users are, and what their requirements may be. This book brings together prominent researchers who have helped to shape semiotic engineering by their insightful discussions on the theory.
Conversations in American Literature: Language, Rhetoric, Culture
by Robin Dissin Aufses Renee H. Shea Lawrence ScanlonTeachers have struggled for years to balance the competing demands of American Literature and AP English Language. Now, the team that brought you the bestselling Language of Composition is here to help. Conversations in American Literature: Language Rhetoric Culture is a new kind of American Literature anthology--putting nonfiction on equal footing with the traditional fiction and poetry, and emphasizing the skills of rhetoric, close reading, argument, and synthesis. To spark critical thinking, the book includes TalkBack pairings and synthesis Conversations that let students explore how issues and texts from the past continue to impact the present. Whether you're teaching AP English Language, or gearing up for Common Core, Conversations in American Literature will help you revolutionize the way American literature is taught.
Conversations in Exile: Russian Writers Abroad
by Joanna Robin Richard Robin John GladAn entire generation of Russian writers have been living in exile from their homeland. Although today's glasnost has special meaning for many of these banished writers, it does not dissolve their experience of forced separation from their country of origin. In Conversations in Exile, John Glad brings together interviews with fourteen prominent Russian writers in exile, all of whom currently live in the United States, France, or Germany. Conducted between 1978 and 1989, these frank and captivating interviews provide a rich and complex portrait of a national literature in exile.Glad's introduction situates the three distinct waves of westward emigration in their historical and political framework. Organized by genre, the book begins with discussions with the older generation of writers and then moves on to more recent arrivals: the makers of fantasy and humor, the aesthetes, the moralists, and the realists. Each voice is compelling for its invaluable testimony--some reveal startling insights into the persecution of dissidents under Soviet rule while others address the relationship between creativity, writing, and conditions of exile. Taken together these interviews reveal the range of modern Russian writing and document the personalities and positions that have made Russian writers in emigration so diverse, experimental, and controversial.The Writers: Vasily Aksyonov, Joseph Brodsky, Igor Chinnov, Natalya Goranevskaya, Frifrikh Gorensetin, Roman Goul, Yury Ivask, Boris Khazanov, Edward Liminov, Vladimir Makisimov, Andrei Siniavsky and Maria Rozanova, Sasha Sokolov, Vladimir Voinovich, Aleksandr ZinovievExcerpt John Glad: You're a Russian poet but an American essayist. Does that bring on any measure of split personality? Do you think you are becoming less and less Russian?Joseph Brodsky (recipient of 1987 Nobel Prize for Literature): That's not for me to say. As far as I'm concerned, in my inner self, inside, it feels quite natural. I think being a Russian poet and an American essayist is an ideal situation. It's all a matter of whether you have (a) the heart and (b) the brains to be able to do both. Sometimes I think I do. Sometimes I think I don't. Sometimes I think that one interferes with the other.
Conversations of Socrates
by XenophonAfter the execution of Socrates in 399 BC, a number of his followers wrote dialogues featuring him as the protagonist and, in so doing, transformed the great philosopher into a legendary figure. Xenophon's portrait is the only one other than Plato's to survive, and while it offers a very personal interpretation of Socratic thought, it also reveals much about the man and his philosophical views. In 'Socrates' Defence' Xenophon defends his mentor against charges of arrogance made at his trial, while the 'Memoirs of Socrates' also starts with an impassioned plea for the rehabilitation of a wronged reputation. Along with 'The Estate-Manager', a practical economic treatise, and 'The Dinner-Party', a sparkling exploration of love, Xenophon's dialogues offer fascinating insights into the Socratic world and into the intellectual atmosphere and daily life of ancient Greece.
Conversations of the Mind: The Uses of Journal Writing for Second-Language Learners
by Rebecca William MlynarczykAsking students to write journals that reflect on their learning has become a widespread pedagogical practice in recent years. However, the scholarly literature does not address certain key questions about how journal writing aids learning: * Is there something inherent in journal writing that encourages students to write reflectively? * What psycholinguistic or cognitive factors help to explain the power of journal writing? * Why do some students use journals to write prolifically and creatively while others limit their responses to summarizing the assigned course reading? * Why do teachers find some journal entries so much more engaging than others? * How do teachers' ways of responding to journals affect their students' development as writers and thinkers? This book addresses such questions through a careful analysis of the journal writing of the students in the author's ESL classes at a large urban college. It contains detailed case studies of five culturally- and linguistically-diverse students with widely differing responses to journal writing. To teachers of composition for both first- and second-language students and to teachers of graduate courses in education and qualitative research, this book offers a contextualized description of journal writings as a complex social activity. By emphasizing the need for educators to reexamine their pedagogy and to learn from their students, Conversations of the Mind is an indispensable contribution to the emerging literature of teacher research and reflective practice.
Conversations with Allen Ginsberg (Literary Conversations Series)
by David Stephen CalonneAllen Ginsberg (1926–1997) was one of the most famous American poets of the twentieth century. Yet, his career is distinguished by not only his strong contributions to literature but also social justice. Conversations with Allen Ginsberg collects interviews from 1962 to 1997 that chart Ginsberg’s intellectual, spiritual, and political evolution.Ginsberg’s mother, Naomi, was afflicted by mental illness, and Ginsberg’s childhood was marked by his difficult relationship with her; however, he also gained from her a sense of the necessity to fight against social injustice that would mark his political commitments. While a student at Columbia University, Ginsberg would meet Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Gregory Corso, and the Beat Generation was born. Ginsberg researched deeply the social issues he cared about, and this becomes clear with each interview. Ginsberg discusses all manner of topics including censorship laws, the legalization of marijuana, and gay rights. A particularly interesting aspect of the book is the inclusion of interviews that explore Ginsberg’s interests in Buddhist philosophy and his intensive reading in a variety of spiritual traditions. Conversations with Allen Ginsberg also explores the poet’s relationship with Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and the final interviews concentrate on his various musical projects involving the adapting of poems by William Blake as well as settings of his own poetry. This is an essential collection for all those interested in Beat literature and twentieth-century American culture.
Conversations with American Writers
by Charles RuasAuthors interviewed: Eudora Welty, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Marguerite Young, William Burroughs, Joseph Heller, Susan Sontag, E. L. Doctorow, Toni Morrison, Paul Theroux, Robert Stone, Scott Spencer.
Conversations with Andre Dubus (Literary Conversations Series)
by Olivia Carr EdenfieldOver three decades, celebrated fiction writer Andre Dubus (1936–1999) published seven collections of short stories, two collections of essays, two collections of previously published stories, two novels, and a novella. While this is an impressive publishing record for any writer, for Dubus, who suffered a near-fatal accident mid-career, it is near miraculous. Just after midnight on July 23, 1986, after stopping to assist two stranded motorists, Dubus was struck by a car. His right leg was crushed, and his left leg had to be amputated above the knee. After months of hospital stays and surgeries, he would suffer chronic pain for the rest of his life. However, when he gave his first interview after the accident, his deepest fear was that he would never write again. This collection of interviews traces his career beginning in 1967 with the publication of his novel The Lieutenant, to his final interview given right before his death February 24, 1999. In between are conversations that focus on his shift to essay writing during his long recovery period as well as those that celebrate his return to fiction with the publication of “The Colonel's Wife,” in 1993. Dubus would also share stories surrounding his Louisiana childhood, his three marriages, the writers who influenced him, and his deep Catholic faith.
Conversations with Angela Davis (Literary Conversations Series)
by Sharon Lynette JonesWhen Angela Davis (b. 1944) was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list in 1970 and after she successfully gained acquittal in the 1972 trial that garnered national and international attention, she became one of the most recognizable and iconic figures in the twentieth century. An outspoken advocate for the oppressed and exploited, she has written extensively about the intersections between race, class, and gender; Black liberation; and the US prison system. Conversations with Angela Davis seeks to explore Davis’s role as an educator, scholar, and activist who continues to engage in important and significant social justice work. Featuring seventeen interviews ranging from the 1970s to the present day, the volume chronicles Davis’s life and her involvement with and influence on important and significant historical and cultural events. Davis comments on a range of topics relevant to social, economic, and political issues from national and international contexts, and taken together, the interviews explore how her views have evolved over the past several decades. The volume provides insight on Davis’s relationships with such organizations as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Communist Party, the Green Party, and Critical Resistance, and how Davis has fought for racial, gender, and social and economic equality in the US and abroad. Conversations with Angela Davis also addresses her ongoing work in the prison abolition movement.
Conversations with Barry Hannah (Literary Conversations Series)
by James G. Thomas Jr.Between 1972 and 2001, Barry Hannah (1942–2010) published eight novels and four collections of short stories. A master of short fiction, Hannah is considered by many to be one of the most important writers of modern American literature. His writing is often praised more for its unflinching use of language, rich metaphors, and tragically damaged characters than for plot. “I am doomed to be a lengthy fragmentist,” he once claimed. “In my thoughts, I don't ever come on to plot in a straightforward way.” Conversations with Barry Hannah collects interviews published between 1980 and 2010. Within them Hannah engages interviewers in discussions on war and violence, masculinity, religious faith, abandoned and unfinished writing projects, the modern South and his time spent away from it, the South's obsession with defeat, the value of teaching writing, and post-Faulknerian literature. Despite his rejection of the label “southern writer,” Hannah's work has often been compared to that of fellow Mississippian William Faulkner, particularly for each author's use of dark humor and the Southern Gothic tradition in their work. Notwithstanding these comparisons, Hannah's voice is distinctly and undeniably his own, a linguistic tour de force.
Conversations with Ben Okri (Literary Conversations Series)
by Vanessa GuigneryConversations with Ben Okri collects twenty-six interviews that range from 1986 to 2023 and reflect the international resonance of Nigerian writer Ben Okri's work. The reader is given access to the various phases of Okri’s life and career, beginning with his childhood (b. 1959) and upbringing in Nigeria and the publication of his early short stories and novels. The interviews also explore the tremendous success of The Famished Road (for which Okri became the first Black African writer to receive the Booker Prize in 1991) and the dazzling creativity of his subsequent work in a multiplicity of literary genres. The volume offers insight into the writer’s creative process and his unique views on literature, history, memory, politics, freedom, spirituality, and environmental issues. The conversations often veer into fascinating philosophical discussions about the nature of art and reality, the value of myth, and the dynamics of storytelling.Since the publication of his first novel in 1980, Okri has encouraged his readers to open their minds and eyes to new modes of perceiving reality. Convinced of the universality of art, he has been intent on redreaming the world from a variety of perspectives in poems, essays, short stories, novels, and plays written over a period of more than forty years. Throughout his career, Ben Okri has never stopped experimenting with new forms, creating the stoku (a mixture of short story and haiku), endowing his fictional and nonfictional creations with poetic undertones, and collaborating with visual artists, musicians, and dancers.
Conversations with Beth Henley (Literary Conversations Series)
by Jackson R. Bryer and Mary C. HartigWith roots in the American South, Beth Henley (b. 1952) has for four decades been a working playwright and screenwriter. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1981 at the age of twenty-eight, Henley so far has written twenty-five produced plays that are always original, usually darkly comic, and often experimental. In these interviews, Henley speaks of the plays, from her early crowd-pleasers, Crimes of the Heart and The Miss Firecracker Contest, to her more experimental plays, including The Debutante Ball and Control Freaks, to her brilliant and time-bending play, The Jacksonian. Henley is a master at writing about the duality of human experience—the beautiful and the grotesque, the cruel and the loving. This duality provokes in Henley both amazement and compassion. She discusses here not only her admiration for Chekhov and other influences, but also her process of bringing a play from notebooks of images and bits of dialogues through rumination, writing, and rewriting to rehearsals and previews. The interviews range from 1981, just before she won the Pulitzer Prize, to 2020 and cover nearly forty years of a creative life, which, as Henley remarks in the most recent interview, is “such a life worth living: to be in tune with the creative process.”
Conversations with Billy Collins (Literary Conversations Series)
by John CusatisBilly Collins “puts the ‘fun’ back in profundity,” says poet Alice Fulton. Known for what he has called “hospitable” poems, which deftly blend wit and erudition, Collins (b. 1941) is a poet of nearly unprecedented popularity. His work is also critically esteemed and well represented in The Norton Anthology of American Literature. An English professor for five decades, Collins was fifty-seven when his poetry began gathering considerable international attention. Conversations with Billy Collins chronicles the poet’s career beginning with his 1998 interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, which exponentially expanded his readership, three years prior to his being named United States Poet Laureate. Other interviewers range from George Plimpton, founder of the Paris Review, to Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Henry Taylor to a Presbyterian pastor, a physics professor, and a class of AP English Literature students. Over the course of the twenty-one interviews included in the volume, Collins discusses such topics as discovering his persona, that consistently affable voice that narrates his often wildly imaginative poems; why poetry is so loved by children but often met with anxiety by high school students; and his experience composing a poem to be recited during a joint session of Congress on the first anniversary of 9/11, a tragedy that occurred during his tenure as poet laureate. He also explores his love of jazz, his distaste for gratuitously difficult poetry and autobiographical poems, and his beguiling invention of a mock poetic form: the paradelle. Irreverent, incisive, and deeply life-affirming—like his twelve volumes of poetry—these interviews, gathered for the first time in one volume, will edify and entertain readers in the way his sold-out readings have done for the past quarter century.
Conversations with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Literary Conversations Series)
by Daria TuncaNigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (b. 1977) is undoubtedly one of the most widely acclaimed African writers of the twenty-first century. Best known for her insightful fiction, viral TED talks, and essays on feminism, she is also an outspoken intellectual. As she puts it in an interview with Lia Grainger, in her characteristically straightforward style: “I have things to say and I’ll say them.”Conversations with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the first collection of interviews with the writer. Covering fifteen years of conversations, the interviews start with the publication of Adichie’s first novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003), and end in late 2018, by which time Adichie had become one of the most prominent figures on the international literary scene. As both scholars and passionate readers of the author’s work are bound to find out, the opinions shared by Adichie in interviews over the years coalesce into a fascinating portrait that presents both abiding features and gradual transformations.Reflecting the political and emotional scope of Adichie’s work, the conversations contained in this volume cover a wide range of topics, including colonialism, race, immigration, and feminism. Collectively, these interviews testify both to the author’s ardent wish to strive for a more just and equal world, and to her deep interest in exploring our common humanity. As Adichie says in her 2009 interview with Joshua Jelly-Schapiro: “When people call me a novelist, I say, well, yes. I really think of myself as a storyteller.” This book invites Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to tell her own literary story.
Conversations with Colson Whitehead (Literary Conversations Series)
by Derek C. MausSince the publication of his first novel, The Intuitionist, in 1999, Colson Whitehead (b. 1969) has been considered an important new voice in American literature. His seven subsequent books have done little to contradict that initial assessment, especially after 2016’s The Underground Railroad spent many weeks at the top of bestseller lists and won numerous major literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize.Ranging from 2001 to 2016, the twenty-three interviews collected in Conversations with Colson Whitehead reveal the workings of one of America’s most idiosyncratic and most successful literary minds. Through these interviews, it is clear that none of this well-earned praise has gone to his head. If anything, he still seems inclined to present himself as an awkward misfit who writes about such offbeat subject matter as rival groups of elevator inspectors, the insufficiency of off-brand “flesh-colored” bandages, or a literalized alternate version of the Underground Railroad.Whitehead speaks at length about matters related to his craft, including his varied literary and nonliterary influences, the particular methods of researching and writing that have proved valuable to telling his stories, and the ways in which he has managed the rollercoaster life of a professional writer. He also opens up about popular culture, particularly the unconventional blend of music, genre fiction, B movies, and comic books that he gleefully identifies as a passion that has persisted for him since his childhood.
Conversations with Colum McCann (Literary Conversations Series)
by Earl G. Ingersoll and Mary C. IngersollConversations with Colum McCann brings together eighteen interviews with a world-renowned fiction writer. Ranging from his 1994 literary debut, Fishing the Sloe-Black River, to a previously unpublished interview conducted in 2016, these interviews represent the development as well as the continuation of McCann's interests. The number and length of the later conversations attest to his star-power. Let the Great World Spin earned him the National Book Award and promises to become a major motion picture. His most recent novel, TransAtlantic, has awed readers with its dynamic yoking of the 1845-46 visit of Frederick Douglass to Ireland, the 1919 first nonstop transatlantic flight of Alcock and Brown, and Senator George Mitchell's 1998 efforts to achieve a peace accord in Northern Ireland. An extensive interview by scholar Cécile Maudet is included here, as is an interview by John Cusatis, who wrote Understanding Colum McCann, the first extensive critical analysis of McCann's work. An author who actually enjoys talking about his work, McCann (b. 1965) offers insights into his method of writing, what he hopes to achieve, as well as the challenge of writing each novel to go beyond his accomplishments in the novel before. Readers will note how many of his responses include stories in which he himself is the object of the humor and how often his remarks reveal insights into his character as a man who sees the grittiness of the urban landscape but never loses faith in the strength of ordinary people and their capacity to prevail.
Conversations with Contemporary Cinematographers: The Eye Behind the Lens
by Jacqueline B FrostPacked with gems of wisdom from the current 'masters of light’, this collection of conversations with twenty leading contemporary cinematographers provides invaluable insight into the art and craft of cinematography. Jacqueline Frost’s interviews provide unprecedented insight into the role as cinematographers discuss selecting projects, the conceptual and creative thinking that goes into devising a visual strategy, working with the script, collaborating with leading directors such as Martin Scorcese, Spike Lee, and Ava DuVernay, the impact of changing technology, and offer advice for aspiring cinematographers. Interviews include Maryse Alberti, John Bailey, Robert Elswit, Kirsten Johnson, Kira Kelly, Ellen Kuras, Edward Lachman, Matthew Libatique, John Lindley, Seamus McGarvey, Reed Morano, Polly Morgan, Rachel Morrison, Rodrigo Prieto, Cynthia Pusheck, Harris Savides, Nancy Schrieber, John Seale, Sandi Sissel, Dante Spinotti, Salvatore Totino, Amy Vincent and Mandy Walker. Filled with valuable information and advice for aspiring cinematographers, directors, and filmmakers, this is essential reading for anyone interested in the art and craft of cinematography.
Conversations with Dana Gioia (Literary Conversations Series)
by John ZhengConversations with Dana Gioia is the first collection of interviews with the internationally known poet and public intellectual, covering every stage of his busy, polymathic career. Dana Gioia (b. 1950) has made many contributions to contemporary American literature and culture, including but not limited to crafting a personal poetic style suited to the age; leading the revival of rhyme, meter, and narrative through New Formalism; walloping the “intellectual ghetto” of American poetry through his epochal article “Can Poetry Matter?”; helping American poetry move forward by organizing influential conferences; providing public service and initiating nationwide arts projects such as Poetry Out Loud through his leadership of the National Endowment for the Arts; and editing twenty best-selling literary anthologies widely used in American classrooms. Taken together, the twenty-two collected interviews increase our understanding of Gioia’s poetry and poetics, offer aesthetic pleasure in themselves, and provide a personal encounter with a writer who has made poetry matter. The book presents the actual voice of Dana Gioia, who speaks of his personal and creative life and articulates his unique vision of American culture and poetry.
Conversations with Dave Eggers (Literary Conversations Series)
by Scott F. ParkerIt’s been barely twenty years since Dave Eggers (b. 1970) burst onto the American literary scene with the publication of his memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. In that time, he has gone on to publish several books of fiction, a few more books of nonfiction, a dozen books for children, and many harder-to-classify works. In addition to his authorship, Eggers has established himself as an influential publisher, editor, and designer. He has also founded a publishing company, McSweeney’s; two magazines, Might and McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern; and several nonprofit organizations. This whirlwind of productivity, within publishing and beyond, gives Eggers a unique standing among American writers: jack of all trades, master of same.The interviews contained in Conversations with Dave Eggers suggest the range of Eggers’s pursuits—a range that is reflected in the variety of the interviews themselves. In addition to the expected interviews with major publications, Eggers engages here with obscure magazines and blogs, trade publications, international publications, student publications, and children from a mentoring program run by one of his nonprofits. To read the interviews in sequence is to witness Eggers’s rapid evolution. The cultural hysteria around Eggers’s memoir and his complicated relationship with celebrity are clear in many of the earlier interviews. From there, as the buzz around him mellows, Eggers responds in kind, allowing writing and his other endeavors to come to the fore of his conversations. Together, these interviews provide valuable insight into a driving force in contemporary American literature.
Conversations with David Foster Wallace (Literary Conversations Series)
by Stephen J. BurnAcross two decades of intense creativity, David Foster Wallace (1962-2008) crafted a remarkable body of work that ranged from unclassifiable essays to a book about transfinite mathematics to vertiginous fictions. Whether through essay volumes (A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Consider the Lobster), short story collections (Girl with Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Oblivion), or his novels (Infinite Jest, The Broom of the System), the luminous qualities of Wallace's work recalibrated our measures of modern literary achievement. Conversations with David Foster Wallace gathers twenty-two interviews and profiles that trace the arc of Wallace's career, shedding light on his omnivorous talent. Jonathan Franzen has argued that, for Wallace, an interview provided a formal enclosure in which the writer “could safely draw on his enormous native store of kindness and wisdom and expertise.” Wallace's interviews create a wormhole in which an author's private theorizing about art spill into the public record. Wallace's best interviews are vital extra-literary documents, in which we catch him thinking aloud about his signature concerns—irony's magnetic hold on contemporary language, the pale last days of postmodernism, the delicate exchange that exists between reader and writer. At the same time, his acute focus moves across MFA programs, his negotiations with religious belief, the role of footnotes in his writing, and his multifaceted conception of his work's architecture. Conversations with David Foster Wallace includes a previously unpublished interview from 2005, and a version of Larry McCaffery's influential Review of Contemporary Fiction interview with Wallace that has been expanded with new material drawn from the original raw transcript.
Conversations with Diane di Prima (Literary Conversations Series)
by David Stephen CalonneDiane di Prima (1934–2020) was one of the most important American poets of the twentieth century, and her career is distinguished by strong contributions to both literature and social justice. Di Prima and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) edited The Floating Bear (1962–69), one of the most significant underground publications of the sixties. Di Prima’s poetry and prose chronicle her opposition to the Vietnam War; her advocacy of the rights of Blacks, Native Americans, and the LGBTQ community; her concern about environmental issues; and her commitment to creating a world free of exploitation and poverty. In addition, di Prima is significant due to her challenges to the roles that American women were expected to play in society. Her Memoirs of a Beatnik was a sensation, and she talks about its lasting impact as well. Conversations with Diane di Prima presents twenty interviews ranging from 1972 to 2010 that chart di Prima’s intellectual, spiritual, and political evolution. From her adolescence, di Prima was fascinated by occult, esoteric, and magical philosophies. In these interviews readers can see the ways these concepts influenced both her personal life and her poetry and prose. We are able to view di Prima’s life course from her year at Swarthmore College; her move back to New York and then to San Francisco; her studies of Zen Buddhism; her fascination with the I Ching, Paracelsus, John Dee, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, alchemy, Tarot, and Kabbalah; and her later engagement with Tibetan Buddhism and work with Chögyam Trungpa. Another particularly interesting aspect of the book is the inclusion of interviews that explore di Prima’s career as an independent publisher—she founded Poets Press in New York and Eidolon Editions in California—and her commitment to promoting writers such as Audre Lorde. Taken together, these interviews reveal di Prima as both a writer of genius and an intensely honest, direct, passionate, and committed advocate of a revolution in consciousness.
Conversations with Donald Hall (Literary Conversations Series)
by John Martin-Joy, Allan Cooper and Richard RohfritchConversations with Donald Hall offers a unique glimpse into the creative process of a major American poet, writer, editor, anthologist, and teacher. The volume probes in depth Hall’s evolving views on poetry, poets, and the creative process over a period of more than sixty years. Donald Hall (1928–2018) reveals vivid, funny, and moving anecdotes about T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the sculptor Henry Moore; he talks about his excitement on his return to New Hampshire and the joys of his marriage with Jane Kenyon; and he candidly discusses his loss and grief when Kenyon died in 1995 at the age of forty-seven. The thirteen interviews range from a detailed exploration of the composition of “Ox Cart Man” to the poems that make up Without, an almost unbearable poetry of grief that was written following Jane Kenyon’s death. The book also follows Hall into old age, when he turned to essay writing and the reflections on aging that make up Essays after Eighty. This moving and insightful collection of interviews is crucial for anyone interested in poetry and the creative process, the techniques and achievements of modern American poetry, and the elusive psychology of creativity and loss.