Readers of fine novels cherish the opportunity to hear their favorite novelists speak directly, without commentary or interpretation, about how their lives and concerns drive their fiction writing. For twenty years The Missouri Review has brought these readers some of the most compelling and thought- provoking literary interviews in print. In this collection of fifteen in-depth interviews with contemporary novelists, the authors discuss the style and themes of their work, their writing habits, their cultural and social backgrounds, and larger aesthetic issues with refreshing insight about themselves and their art.

Originally conducted for the American Audio Prose Library, the interviews were then edited for publication in The Missouri Review. Here they are reproduced with an introduction and with a brief biographical and bibliographical headnote for each writer. These candid interviews with some of our favorite novelists are sure to delight all readers.

Authors Interviewed in This Volume:

Robert Stone
Jamaica Kincaid
Jim Harrison
Tom McGuane
Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris
John Edgar Wideman
Robb Forman Dew
Rosellen Brown
Peter Matthiessen
Scott Turow
Margaret Walker
Linda Hogan
Robert Olen Butler
Jessica Hagedorn
Larry Brown

About the Editors

Kay Bonetti is founder and Director of American Audio Prose Library.

Greg Michalson is Managing Editor of The Missouri Review. His fiction has been mentioned in Best American Short Stories and in the Pushcart Prize anthology. He also serves as General Editor of a prize-winning novel series published by MacMurray and Beck.

Speer Morgan is Editor of The Missouri Review and Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is the author of four novels, most recently The Whipping Boy.

Jo Sapp has recently returned from a four-year stint in Malaysia, where she studied the literature of the region and wrote short fiction. Her stories have appeared in numerous magazines and have been included in the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction.