Padgett Powell
Padgett Powell
Padgett Powell is an American novelist in the Southern literary tradition. His debut novel, Edisto, was nominated for the American Book Award and was excerpted in The New Yorker. Powell has written five more novels—including A Woman Named Drown, Edisto Revisited, a sequel to his debut, Mrs. Hollingsworth's Men, The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?, and You & Me, his most recent—and three collections of short stories. In addition to The New Yorker, Powell's work has appeared in The Paris Review,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth25 April 1952
CountryUnited States of America
In my experience, great reviews almost always ensure no sales.
If you're going to write a book that might, in its very best accidental career, sell 30,000 copies, you've got to have a day job.
I was a commercial roofer before this, until about age thirty. I will not work others under me and do not want to work under others.
I think William Trevor is as good as it gets. Whenever I want a book to do exactly what it says it will, I read him.
I stuff animals I find; I do roadkill. They're strangely fun to have. They're like easy-to-control pets.
I don't write anything if I'm not agreeable and liking it. I'm not one of these slavers who wads up paper. It comes or it doesn't.
I associate the truest spirit of Christmas with certain years when I had to spend it at my parents' house as an adult who had, presumably, escaped.
I am writing a book more improbable than 'The Interrogative Mood' that I call 'Manifesto'. It's two guys talking who speak artificially conveniently.
Bermuda is not even tropical. The charm of the tropics - the heat, the chaos - is not there.
Many parks in Florida have information kiosks with colorful enamel signs showing the special flora and fauna in the park. The gopher tortoise, the scrub jay, the indigo snake. At no park with an indigo snake on its kiosk signs could I find an indigo.
I know about the sweet home. I went to school with 'em boys, what became Lynyrd Skynyrd; I knew Allen Collins, the skinny girl-beautiful guitarist. I put Allen Collins in every travel piece I do. Travel writing is harrowing, going to Bermuda with a banjo on my knee.
If I slip up and receive a good gift, I will not have given a good gift. This is probably a natural law that affects us all and needs a name. The Gift Reciprocal Law.
That's part of fiction, creating a world better than the one you live in.
Heavy booze is a big time vacation, but you come back with a headache.