Ben Fountain
Ben Fountain
Ben Fountainis an American fiction writer currently living in Dallas, Texas. He has won many awards including a PEN/Hemingway award for Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Storiesand the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction for his debut novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
america bush confusion elected note please question state writers
After Bush was elected in 2004 - please note that I didn't say 're-elected' - and I was walking around in my befuzzed state of confusion and low-grade depression, I set out more or systematically to read writers who'd grappled with that fundamental question of what America is, why it is the way it is.
main work
The main thing about writing is... writing. Sitting your butt down in the chair and doing the work.
new-york eye doctors
The strange, wonderful stories of Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain introduce us to the tremendously gifted Kirsten Menger-Anderson, a writer whose subject is nothing less than the diagnosis and cure of the human malady. We follow twelve generations of New York City's Steenwycks family through their forays into phrenology, mesmerism, radium therapy and similar misadventures, a historically rich narrative that Menger-Anderson delivers in striking, elegant prose and with a sure eye for detail. This is a remarkable debut by a writer to watch.
long gone way
If you could figure out how to live with family then you'd gone a long way toward finding your peace.
writing college two
I took two fiction-writing courses in college and majored in literature. I felt that I had a knack though I wouldn't go so far as to call it a talent. But it scared me. I felt it was a childish thing wanting to write and that I would forget about it eventually.
writing law mba
I really had to decide why I was writing. I had no interest in going back to law; I very briefly - for about six hours - considered going to get my MBA, but in the end, I realized that the only work I really wanted to do was write.
taken thinking car
I think I was lucky to come of age in a place and time - the American South in the 1960s and '70s - when the machine hadn't completely taken over life. The natural world was still the world, and machines - TV, telephone, cars - were still more or less ancillary, and computers were unheard of in everyday life.
way late learners
Late bloomer' is another way of saying 'slow learner.
littles gaps ashamed
I'm ashamed and embarrassed to say that I've read very little of David Foster Wallace's work. It's a huge gap in my education, one of many.
writing trying honest
I realized I was never going to have any peace with myself unless I made an honest stab at trying to write.
writing thinking self
I think if you spend much time dwelling on influence you can get self-conscious about every line you write. That's a great way to freeze up.
writing choral-music chamber-music
I never listen to music when I'm writing.
art real theater
The Kessler Theater is one such gem, an Art Deco beauty … for a slice of real life, there’s always the Kessler.
book writing years
I quit law in 1988 to start writing, and it took me 17 years from that point to get a book contract. I guess you can say I was on the slow train.