Anthony Doerr "The Pleasure of Being an Alchemist": An Interview Anthony Doerr is the author of three books, The ShelL CoLlector, About Grace, and Four Seasons in Rome. Doerr's short fiction has won three 0. Henry Prizes and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The Anchor Book of New American ShOTt Sto-
ries, and The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction. He has won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Ohioana Book Award twice. His books have been a New York Times Notable Book, an American Library Association Book of the Year, a 'Book of the Year' in the Washington Post, and a finalist for the PEN USA fiction award. In 2007, the British literary magazine Granta placed Doerr on its list of 21 Best Young American novelists. He also writes a regular column on science books for the Boston Globe. Mr. Doerr generously agreed to an interview with editor Kendall Sand, and even said she could call him Tony. Kendall Sand: Tony, your characters are marine biologists, hydrologists, volleyball players, fossil hunters and war refugees. They live in places like Tanzania, Maine, the Carribean, and Kenya. Another writer might hesitate to write about characters and settings so distinct from her own experience. It makes me think of that faulty adage that a writer ought to "write what you know," What do you think a writer has to "know" in order to write meaningfully? Anthony D oerr: I'd argue we write to learn what we don't know; we write toward the mysteries, the things we can't articulate but believe are there, feel are there. Maybe we start with what we know, but then we work in the opposite direction, away from the things that are comfortable, familiar known. 82
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