Ask the Author: Dominic Smith
Answered Questions (12)
Dominic Smith
Hi Pat,
Sorry to hear that! I can see if I can help track it down from my publisher. Can you email me at dominic@dominicsmith.net and forward the notification you received about winning a copy? Then I can dig into it. Thanks!
Dominic
Sorry to hear that! I can see if I can help track it down from my publisher. Can you email me at dominic@dominicsmith.net and forward the notification you received about winning a copy? Then I can dig into it. Thanks!
Dominic
Dominic Smith
Hi there, Thanks for reading! Here's a handy dictionary definition:
(sometimes singular) (in North America) a stretch of usually level land that is sparsely vegetated or barren.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bar...
Hope that helps! I use the word to convey not only the landscape but also the mood/atmosphere.
(sometimes singular) (in North America) a stretch of usually level land that is sparsely vegetated or barren.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bar...
Hope that helps! I use the word to convey not only the landscape but also the mood/atmosphere.
Dominic Smith
Hi Henry, that's so weird. The page count is 304, so I don't think you're missing anything. Thanks for reading! And I will email GR about that.
Best--
Dominic
Best--
Dominic
Dominic Smith
I wish I had that kind of inventiveness! But my favorite one-sentence story is Hemingway's, which is a kind of horror story:
"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
Dominic Smith
A family friend had stories of a character very much like Whit; the real person even spent time in space. I felt like I needed a character to offset Samuel's abstraction and the way he's always in his head.
Dominic Smith
Hi Taylor,
The hardest part is revision--working out how to kill off the things that are holding back the book. That takes discipline and a certain kind of willfulness. As far as advice for aspiring writers, I've been lucky enough not to have any major regrets in my publishing career. I would just say that reading widely and deeply is the most important prerequisite for writing. Thanks!
The hardest part is revision--working out how to kill off the things that are holding back the book. That takes discipline and a certain kind of willfulness. As far as advice for aspiring writers, I've been lucky enough not to have any major regrets in my publishing career. I would just say that reading widely and deeply is the most important prerequisite for writing. Thanks!
Dominic Smith
Actually, The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre is my first novel, published in the US in 2006. But it's a thrill to see it finally come out in Australia, where I grew up. I am always amazed at the breadcrumb trail of the past. Right now, I'm in Washington D.C. doing research for my next novel, which focuses on early cinema. In a few hours I'll be at the Library of Congress, watching some of the earliest footage made in America. What a great gig!
Dominic Smith
I'm reading some older books: In the Skin of a Lion, by Michael Ondaatje, and The Left-Handed Woman, by Peter Handke.
Dominic Smith
I’m working on a new novel that takes place in the world of early cinema—a slice of time when Edison and the Lumière brothers were competing for the same American eyeballs. In a way, it’s a return to material that I discovered in a short story I published a decade ago called The Projectionist. (http://www.dominicsmith.net/pdfs/essa...)
Dominic Smith
Read widely, experiment with form and voice. Be willing to fail. Develop discipline about when and how you write. Begin crafting your life so you can solve how to make a livelihood while still carving out time to write on a regular schedule.
Dominic Smith
There are certainly days when it feels like nothing is flowing, where the conceit or the writing itself seems lacking. But I have learned to accept this as part of the normal writing practice. I strongly believe that inspiration comes out of the work. We shouldn’t wait for inspiration to strike as a condition for writing. We develop the practice, do the work, and inspiration comes. Writing is muscular and requires a regimen.
Dominic Smith
My forthcoming novel, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2016) had its genesis ten years ago when I was living in Amsterdam. I have always been fascinated with 17th Dutch art but found it peculiar that very few paintings by women had survived. The Guild of St. Luke (which counted Rembrandt among its members) admitted some 25 women during the 1600s, but only a handful of artists have surviving works. Meanwhile, many women artists have been lost in the historical record--for centuries people through Judith Leyster's paintings were those of Frans Hals.
So my novel came out of imagining a 17th century landscape by a woman with a single surviving work. (Landscapes were never painted by 17th Dutch women because the form requires long hours spent outside.) The painting goes missing in 1950s New York. The novel weaves the stories of the 17th century painter (Sara de Vos), the contemporary inheritor, and an art historian who has made her career on the back of that single painting. She is curating an exhibition in 2000 when two copies of the same iconic painting show up.
So my novel came out of imagining a 17th century landscape by a woman with a single surviving work. (Landscapes were never painted by 17th Dutch women because the form requires long hours spent outside.) The painting goes missing in 1950s New York. The novel weaves the stories of the 17th century painter (Sara de Vos), the contemporary inheritor, and an art historian who has made her career on the back of that single painting. She is curating an exhibition in 2000 when two copies of the same iconic painting show up.
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