The moderator, book critic Carlin Romano, engages a panel of writers on questions like whether there is a New York School of fiction writing with certain common features like a minimalist style and a tendency to emphasize everyday detail over traditional fictional apparatus like elaborate plots and moral conflicts; what influence so-called "nightclub fiction," like the novels of Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz, has on their work; and whether the publishing house you're published by matters (all the writers on the panel are published by Knopf). Amy Hempel, David Leavitt, Mona Simpson, and Deborah Eisenberg, in general, emphasize their deliberate, willed independence from and indifference to "schools", commercial forces, and famous colophons, and discuss instead their individual choices, particularly regarding questions of language and style.
