The Paris Review

I titled this "The Paris Review" because I just heard they have archived all of their past author interviews online. Perusing their website, I didn't find this to be true, although they have excerpts of many great interviews, including this incident from Paul Auster's childhood that I hadn't heard before:

INTERVIEWER

The most powerful story in that book would have to be the lightning story. You were fourteen years old when it happened. You and a group of boys went out on a hike in the woods, and suddenly you were caught in a terrible electric storm. The boy next to you was struck by lightning and killed. If we want to talk about how you see the world and writing, surely that would count as a fundamental moment.

AUSTER

That incident changed my life, there's no question about it. One moment the boy was alive, and the next moment he was dead. I was only inches away from him. It was my first experience with random death, with the bewildering instability of things. You think you're standing on solid ground, and an instant later the ground opens under your feet and you vanish.

*There is also a great quote from writer Paula Fox worth putting here:

FOX

At some point I began to value "truth," that elusive thing, more as I grew older—not only story. I recall lying on a bed, looking at a manuscript on the floor as I reached to turn pages, and thinking to myself, I must mean everything I say, every word, and feeling it as a profound moment in my writing life.

Link