TONY EARLEY

How do you tell somebody how to find what they're looking for when ten years ago you came from the same place, and have yet to find it yourself?

I tell my writing students that everything is material; just pay attention.

Writers do not write about a place because they belong there, but because they want to.

I was an English major in college. I was an obnoxious, tortured poet who wasn't very good. And after I graduated, I was a newspaper reporter in my hometown for three and a half years. And then I went and got my MFA at University of Alabama. And while I was at Alabama, that's when I began publishing, first literary magazines, and then at Harper's.

I drive my wife crazy. I'm hypersensitive, which she will often point out. She'll say something, and I find the way she said it hurtful. And she'll look at me like I'm an idiot and say, 'What are you talking about?' My radar is probably tuned way too sensitively. I wouldn't want to change it because I do think it's an important part of what I do.

I think a big part of marriage is not going anywhere on those days you feel you really want to. It's like in the Barrier Islands. If you want to stay together, don't leave. I think just culturally - in the media, in movies, in books - we're trained to divorce when that first blush of sexual longing starts to fade. That's just where marriage starts.

The writing is the first thing that goes when I get a little down. Just like... in terms of how I feel, it's like the writing is in the top five percent, and then that's the first part that gets shaved off, and I start down a little bit.

I come from a long line of serial embellishers. Sometimes a good story's got a ghost in it; sometimes a panther chases my Uncle Bill and Fred Price home from a coon hunt.

Depression is like pushing a car up a hill. It takes all my energy to push the car up the hill. I don't have any energy left to write.

I am filled suddenly with hope. I don't think I will ever die. We are looking for ghosts, but, I think, a good story will do.

I come from a long line of serial embellishers. Sometimes a good story's got a ghost in it; sometimes a panther chases my Uncle Bill and Fred Price home from a coon hunt.

I tell my writing students that everything is material; just pay attention.

The writing is the first thing that goes when I get a little down. Just like... in terms of how I feel, it's like the writing is in the top five percent, and then that's the first part that gets shaved off, and I start down a little bit.

I think a big part of marriage is not going anywhere on those days you feel you really want to. It's like in the Barrier Islands. If you want to stay together, don't leave. I think just culturally - in the media, in movies, in books - we're trained to divorce when that first blush of sexual longing starts to fade. That's just where marriage starts.

The stories in 'Jim the Boy' are either made up or appropriated from some source other than my family. But the idea of a family telling stories to the kid, often to impart some kind of lesson, that's very familiar, and that's the way that I grew up.

I drive my wife crazy. I'm hypersensitive, which she will often point out. She'll say something, and I find the way she said it hurtful. And she'll look at me like I'm an idiot and say, 'What are you talking about?' My radar is probably tuned way too sensitively. I wouldn't want to change it because I do think it's an important part of what I do.

I think irony precludes really feeling deeply about anything. I just didn't want to be that kind of writer who found nothing that wasn't worth indictment. I admire Willa Cather so much because she was unafraid to have big feelings and put them on the page. I just want to be able to believe in things.

I was an English major in college. I was an obnoxious, tortured poet who wasn't very good. And after I graduated, I was a newspaper reporter in my hometown for three and a half years. And then I went and got my MFA at University of Alabama. And while I was at Alabama, that's when I began publishing, first literary magazines, and then at Harper's.

Depression is like pushing a car up a hill. It takes all my energy to push the car up the hill. I don't have any energy left to write.

How do you tell somebody how to find what they're looking for when ten years ago you came from the same place, and have yet to find it yourself?

Writers do not write about a place because they belong there, but because they want to.

I am filled suddenly with hope. I don't think I will ever die. We are looking for ghosts, but, I think, a good story will do.