Interview
JJ: As a professor of creative writing, you are, in some sense, on the frontlines of contemporary fiction. You get to see, daily, what young or emerging writers are up to. So, to end this interview, I'd like to ask what, if anything, you say to your students about beginning, or continuing, to write stories that challenge them artistically? I think our greatest charge as writers is to create a body of work that challenges us, the artist, as much as it does our readers or audience. So, finally, how does one work toward this end? GS: The main thing, I think, is to know that mastery, in fiction, means being comfortable with the fact that you will never be able to rest securely on top of a body of knowledge. You will never be able to take your hands off the wheel and just go. The process of writing will always be trying to repair something that doesn't exist, with tools you have to invent on the spot. That, it seems to me, is the way to keep your work challenging-always try to have it positioned at the center of what feels urgent to you right now. l!'
Winter 2005
45