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National Book Award Finalist Offers Advice to Young Writers
In a Q & A session at Ohio State, award-winning fiction writer Jean Thompson gave some free advice to a gathering of graduate and undergraduate apprentice writers.
"Read promiscuously. Read all over so you’re not overly influenced by anyone,"she offered. "I’ll contradict myself and tell you that imitation is not bad, but at some point you have to move on."
It took Thompson a while to think of herself as a writer. "Probably not until graduate school," she said. "The hardest thing [in writing] is taking yourself seriously."
Thompson admitted she’s frustrated by writers who are clever or self-indulgent "language"writers. "Story should embody meaning"she asserted. Her biggest fear in her own work is producing stories that are "inauthentic, didactic, or preachy. Like Chekhov said, ‘the aim of fiction is absolute truth.’ "The common advice to "write what you know"should compel writers to "know more. Learn more.”
The audience members shared her enthusiasm for the craft of fiction. One student said "You know how when we were kids we would play pretend? I’m nineteen and I can still do that.”
Thompson later read from her new book of stories, Throw Like a Girl, coming out in the spring. She is the author of three short story collections and three novels, including City Boy, The Woman Driver, and Who Do You Love, which was a finalist for the National Book Award.