Dan Chaon
Dan Chaon
Dan Chaon is an American writer. He is the author of three short story collections and two novels, including Among the Missing, which was a 2001 finalist for the National Book Award. Chaon's stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize Anthologies, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline Delaney Professor of Creative Writing and Literature...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
moving-forward moving alive
Even when our death is imminent, we carry the image of ourselves moving forward, alive, into the future.
being-in-love differences acting
In the end, there probably isn't much difference between being in love and acting like you're in love.
mistake sleep eye
Sometimes he thinks that if he could only trace the path of his life carefully enough, everything would become clear. The ways that he screwed up would make sense. He closes his eyes tightly. His life wasn't always a mistake, he thinks, and he breathes uncertainly for awhile, trying to find a pathway into unconsciousness, into sleep.
parent different nebraska
I've had a lot of different lives. I was adopted, I grew up in Nebraska, and then I went to Northwestern... Then I had this really extraordinary, different life than my parents.
mirrors giving community
The thing that grounds you, and the thing that really gives you a sense of wholeness, is your family, friends and your community. Those are the things that can mirror back to you what you're experiencing, and can affirm to you that the stories you are telling are true.
teenager moving reading
I've been reading Peter Straub since I was a teenager, and his work is hardwired into my brain. A Dark Matter contains echoes of all that has been great about Straub's previous work and builds upon it. This Rashomon-like tale is as spooky and frightening as anything he has written, but it's also an intense and moving celebration of love. Out of the darkness comes, ultimately, a surprising and haunting sense of joy.
immature kind crosses
The kind of person I find myself interested in is a cross between being very emotionally complex and very immature. That's what I felt I was like when I was younger.
stories world kind
A novel requires a certain kind of world-building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you have this sense that there are hinges that the reader doesn't see.
stories mystery short-story
I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them.
falling-in-love book way
In some ways all of my fiction is like a conversation I'm having with the writers I read when I was first falling in love with books.