Bloom ’75 Talks in The Guardian about Writing

Fiction writer and essayist Amy Bloom ’75 was interviewed on March 13, 2010 by Emma Brockes in The Guardian, UK. Bloom’s third collection of short stories, Where the God of Love Hangs Out (Random House), was published in January to general critical acclaim.

In the interview, Bloom talks about her previous career as a psychotherapist, growing up with parents employed as writers, writing novels vs. short stories, reviews (she doesn’t read them), writing for television, and her personal life.

Bloom was asked why in an era of withering attention spans, short stories aren’t in greater demand. “It’s a question of commitment, Bloom says. ‘There is a big category of not very well-written but extremely readable novels – books you take to the beach, to the airport, the genre novels that don’t require much of you but fill a few hours. There are very few short stories like that: big, badly written, eminently readable. Those novels require absolutely nothing. It’s like watching television.’ Even the literary magazines she writes for reject stories that have more than one strand. ‘The short story in the modern magazine is an extended anecdote.’ ”

Read the entire Guardian UK interview with Amy Bloom.