Ask the Author: Allen Long
Answered Questions (8)
Allen Long
Moonglow by Michael Chabon, LaRose by Louise Erdrich, Everybody's Fool by Richard Russo, and Commonwealth by Ann Patchett.
Allen Long
Our parents physically abused my brother and me from the time we were small children until we each entered seventh grade. While it is very easy to deduce our father's motivations, our mother's motivations remain a total mystery. Besides our beatings, our mother was nearly perfect when we were kids, and she's been nearly perfect ever since--kind, loving, generous, supportive, etc. I thought hard about this mystery during the five years it took for me to write my memoir, I've never been able to solve it.
Allen Long
I'm inspired to write when I know I've got a moment or a period in time for a memoir that will interest a reader and allow me to learn more about myself and my life at the same time.
Allen Long
Right now, I'm writing magazine-length memoirs again, and I hope to write some short stories, something I haven't done for years.
Allen Long
I work as an assistant editor at Narrative Magazine. One major reason I reject stories is that writers can't get them off the ground fast enough. Many beginning authors spend the first seven pages or so warming up, with the true story starting on page 8. Begin the story on page 1.
Allen Long
Flannery O'Connor once said, "I write to discover what I know." When I write memoirs, I find that I discover all kinds of things about myself and my life that I didn't fully understand at the time but can see clearly now.
Allen Long
I've never had it--knock on wood. But when I finished writing Less than Human: A Memoir, which took me five years, I took a month off and read the latest O. Henry Prize Stories collection. After that, the first thing I wrote was a review of the collection on Amazon. Then I returned to writing magazine-length memoirs.
Allen Long
I starting writing magazine-length memoirs about the most dramatic high points in my life. Then I decided to also write about the most dramatic low points in my life. Pretty soon, I'd written a memoir filled with the most important and dramatic moments in my life.
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