To me, Kurt Vonnegut was the cool writer of his era, and I for one, could not get enough of his writings! Here in Writer's Workshop Tom Wolf introduces Kurt Vonnegut who talks about his concern for young writers and changing times. Vonnegut noted that when he was starting out, there was a hunger for the writings of certain authors and there were magazines, no longer existent, that published short stories. That is not the case currently, advertising for television was seen as a better value than magazines. Borden Deal and William Price Fox offer their commentary.
As the interview goes on, the young writers and Vonnegut grapple with being writers and citizen writers. Vonnegut said that he is a writer because of a Junior Civics Class in 1943, and that he is trying to be a good citizen. "Young writers are too polite....You have to be mean to characters; you have to make the worst thing happen." Vonnegut has an original solution to the problem for today's aspiring writers; this he offers along with a timeless formula for short-story writing and a variety of reflections from his own personal perspective. He talks about the types of authors, swoopers or badgers and the highly prolific Deal notes that he is likely a swooper.
Vonnegut notes that if there is enough character and the action moves along, the reading audience will read stories with complex themes, such as that about a homeless person. During times when he wasn’t making a living, Vonnegut took on a Saab dealership which was a company that made the Messerschmitt during the war. That was not a highly profitable endeavor.
Side Notes:
- November 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007
- Kurt Vonnegut emerged as a novelist and essayist in the 1960s and penned the classic books Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions before 1980.
- Slaughterhouse Five which had been published in 1969 was released as a movie in 1972.
- Vonnegut blended literature with science fiction and humor, and the absurd with pointed social commentary. Vonnegut created his own unique world in each of his novels and filled them with unusual characters, such as the alien race known as the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse-Five. Biography
- Vonnegut's writings are alive with memorable quotes such as “Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
- Borden Deal (October 12, 1922 – January 22, 1985) was a prolific American novelist and short story writer.
The Writer's Workshop features 15 major talents in contemporary literature who met in a one-on-one forum with well-known author William Price Fox and University of South Carolina creative writing students. Each writer discussed his or her personal writing methods, furnishing insights into the highly individualized process of literary creation. Other authors include George Plimpton, James Dickey, James McPherson, John Gardener, John Hawkes, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Nora Ephron, Pauline Kael, Reynolds Price, Stephen Spender, Susan Sontag, Tom Wolf, William Price Fox, and William Styron.
