Description

Vince Passaro is the author of the novel Crazy Sorrow, which you can order here. During this podcast we talk about the rare dinosaur that is Gordon Lish, when and if to pursue an MFA, the shallowness of most editors, his hatred of doing anything except writing, and how smaller presses are going to save literature. A few noteworthy bon mots:

• Most writers don't believe in the stature and the power of literature that [Lish] perceived and proclaimed and made vivid;
• Editors would rather have something easy and familiar than something challenging and new;
• Submitting books via Submittable is like sending your work into a shredder
• As a freelancer, whenever you get paid, it brings you back to broke.

Vince's criticism and essays have appeared in many prominent publications, including Harper’s Magazine, where he is a contributing editor, The Nation, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Elle, Salon, and others, along with short fiction in such national magazines and literary journals as Esquire, GQ, Open City, Agni, Story, Boulevard, and Quarterly West. His first novel, Violence, Nudity, Adult Content, was published in 2002. He lives a few miles north of New York City in an old Huguenot town with his wife, son, and a smattering of film cameras, fountain pens, and other fellow-traveling refuse from the mid-20th century.