I find it so difficult to talk about what I do. There are those who are unnervingly articulate about what they're doing and how they're doing it, which, I suppose, is what this interview is all about. I am not particularly articulate, unnervingly or otherwise. I do believe there is, in fact, a mystery to the whole enterprise that one dares to investigate at peril. The story knows itself better than the writer does at some point, knows what's being said before the writer figures out how to say it. There's a word in German, Sehnsucht. No English equivalent, which is often the case. It means the longing for something that cannot be expressed, or inconsolable longing. There's a word in Welsh, hwyl, for which we also have no match. Again, it is longing, a longing of the spirit. I just think many of my figures seek something that cannot be found.
The Art of Fiction #223 [The Paris Review #209, Summer 2014]
Use the link below to read a 2016 article by North American novelist, short story writer and essayist JOY WILLIAMS:
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