Paul G. Tremblay Quotes

I wrote my first short story for a competition and won second prize. Another competition came up and I won first prize. The first story was published in a newspaper. The second went out on radio.

There is no magic in all the world like that magic when you sell your first bit of writing.

In 1970, at the age of 14, I entered a short story contest offering a grand prize of one dollar. I won. This was my first foray into writing fiction. I loved reading and thought that it shouldn't be so hard to write a story.

You become a different writer when you approach a short story. When things are not always having to represent other things, you find real human beings begin to cautiously appear on your pages.

I'd never written a novel before, and I wrote a novel, and that turned out OK.

Having judged a few competitions, it's clear that novelists are often the laziest short story writers.

I love writing shorter fiction.

Every now and then I'll do little things, a short story or something, that doesn't have any fantastical elements, but mostly I like the power of playing God and I like to imagine things.

I wrote about a bird that cleaned a crocodile's teeth. The story was so good that my teacher could not believe that a ten-year-old could write that well. I was even punished because my teacher thought I'd lied about writing it! I had always loved to write, but it was then that I realized that I had a talent for it.

Well, to be honest I think I'm a better short story writer than a novelist. Novels I find very hard, hours and hours, weeks and weeks, of conscious thought - whereas short stories slip out painlessly in a few days.

I wrote a novel in my early twenties; I won a high school prize - my short story got published, and I got 50 dollars, which was a huge deal.

Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious men who are deprived of honours or of wealth.

I started writing at the kitchen table after midnight. It took ten months to finish that first book; I sent it to a publisher and I got some kind of prize, so it was like a dream - I was surprised to find it happening.

I think the few writers who influenced me most in writing short stories are Alice Munro and Grace Paley. They're very different, and I can't do what they do, but reading them gives me hope that I'll learn something from them.

I've written fiction... but the nonfiction has always received the most attention.

I still write the occasional short story, and poked at a novel once, but it's just not what I want to do.

When I was in my early 20s and still at uni, I won a short-story competition: £200 was the prize.

I sold my first story when I was 21 in 1973.

Being shortlisted for the Swansea University International Dylan Thomas Prize is, of course, a real honour for me and my work. When I wrote 'Conversations with Friends,' it was hard for me to imagine the book even finding readers - so it's a huge privilege to find it judged alongside such exciting and innovative new writing. I'm very grateful.

I do just as much world-building in a short story as I do for a novel.

I would also suggest that any aspiring writer begin with short stories. These days, I meet far too many young writers who try to start off with a novel right off, or a trilogy, or even a nine-book series. That's like starting in at rock climbing by tackling Mt. Everest. Short stories help you learn your craft.

The idea for 'Conversations with Friends' - two college students who befriend a married couple - struck me at first as a concept for a short story. I started to write it under the title 'Melissa,' and eventually, it got too long.

The art of writing fiction is to sail as dangerously close to the truth as possible without sinking the ship

It’s not a lie. It’s a gift for fiction.

The fact, and the intuition or logic about the fact, are severe coordinates in fiction. In the short story they must cross with hair-line precision.