Women Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews

INTRODUCTION BY Ta ISAK DINESEN - MARIANNE MOORE ~ KATHERINE ANNE PORTER * REBECCA WEST ~ DOROTHY PARKER « LILLIAN HELLMAN EUDORA WELTY * MARYMcCARTHY : ELIZABETH HARDWICK * NADINE GORDIMER ANNE SEXTON « CYNTHIA OZICK ~ JOAN DIDION- EDNA O'BRIEN Ohter CABOLOATES aa) BY GEORGE PLIMPTON For more than thirty years, The Paris Review interviews have been collected in the Writers at Work series. Here,at last, is a specialized collection—interviews with fifteen women novelists, poets, and playwrights,all Tae mareumxolilut-Ulielay on the art of writing and on the unique problems and advan_ tages of being a woman writer in contemporary society. Praise for the Writers at Work series: “For more than twenty-five years...the best confessional evidencebywriters about their work habits has been found in The melsKS WTA interviews.” —LosAngeles Times Book Review _ Continues to offer readers cas ntive interviews na erat nT eteeee “The Paris Review inte ern literary interview. ery model of the mod- Wenerally the interviewees are well chosen, the interviewers well prepared, the results well edited.... Taken together, they add. up to an intimate and engaging chronicle of contemporaryliterarylife.” —Time aenennne . , Se eee eels Literary Criticism U.K. CAN. USA £6.99 $11.95 $8.95 ern Parts Ae Teen a : | 7 es T ISBN 0-14-011790-3 | | 9 "7801140°117 Manan onipiey 2079 Viewlynn Dr Vancouver BC V7J 2W7 PENGUIN BOOKS WOMEN WRITERS AT WORK GEORGE PLIMPTONis perhaps best knownfor his widely read accounts of his experiences as an amateur playing sport at the professional level: Out of My League(baseball); Paper Lion (football); The Bogeyman (golf); Shadow Box (boxing); and Open Net (hockey). Editor of the literary quarterly The Paris Review, he has also co-edited a numberofbest-selling books: American Journey: The Times of Robert F. Kennedy, Edie: An American Biography; and D.V.. His most recent book is The Curious Case of Sidd Finch, a novel. MaArGarET ATWOODis the authorof over twenty volumesof poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. She has received many accolades for the body of her work and individual awards for her six novels, The Edible Woman, Surfacing, Lady Oracle, Life Before Man, Bodily Harm, and The Handmaid’s Tale, which was short-listed for the prestigious Booker Prize. A seventh novel, Cat’s Eye, was published to great acclaim in 1989. | In addition to her literary accomplishments, Ms. Atwood has served as President of International P.E.N. (Canadian-Anglophone chapter), and been awarded honorary degrees from several universities. In 1987, she received the Humanist of the Year award. Ms. Atwood was born in Ottawa and grew upin northern Ontario, Que- bec, and Toronto. She hastravelled widely and lived in England, Germany, France, Italy, and the United States. She now lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson andtheir daughterJess. The Paris Review was founded in 1953 by a group of young Americans including Peter Matthiessen, Harold L. Humes, George Plimpton, Thomas Guinzburg, and Donald Hall. While the emphasis of its editors was on publishing creative work rather than nonfiction (among writers who published their first short stories there were Philip Roth, Terry Southern, Evan S. Connell, and Samuel Beckett), part of the magazine’s success can be attributed to its continuing series of interviews on the craft of writing. Previously Published WRITERS