Novelist Anne Tyler released her 25th novel, Three Days in June, in February; it is published by Alfred A. Knopf.
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Days-June-Anne-Tyler-ebook/dp/B0D3Z7X54Y/ref
Elizabeth Egan, a writer and editor at the New York Times Book Review, interviewed Ms. Tyler at the time, for a Times article.
Ms. Egan wrote, of Ms. Tyler:
She
quit writing reviews years ago. “That was my one foray into
nonfiction,” Tyler said. “If I’m writing fiction and I get deep enough
into it, all of a sudden it feels like I’m telling the truth. If I’m
writing nonfiction, I write down something I absolutely believe, and
it’ll look like a lie.” (bold type added above--as well as below)
Ms. Tyler's remarks put me in mind of an interview the novelist (and essayist) Cynthia Ozick gave to The Atlantic, in May of 2023; the interview was an adjunct to a short story she published in The Atlantic the same month.
She was interviewed by Oliver Munday, an associate creative director at The Atlantic.
Ozick: Writing for me is hard labor, no matter the length or the form. I start out in fear and doubt, and continue in this state of prolonged discontent and conscious forcing, until certain unpredictable moments of excitement take over, when the thing begins to know itself and its own trajectory. In the long-distance run of a novel, this can come as late as three-quarters of the way through. The short story at times knows what it intends to happen from the start, but is wholly perplexed as to how to get there. When the dam suddenly breaks, even the words find themselves...
Munday: Aside from short stories, what are you currently working on?
Ozick: How not to lie when writing make-believe.
