From The Writer’s Almanac…
It’s the birthday of the novelist and essayist Walter Kirn, born in Akron, Ohio, (1962). He grew up on a farm in rural Minnesota. He went off to Princeton University, hoping he’d be surrounded by other people who liked to read and talk about ideas. He was disappointed to find that most of the people that he met were more interested in their social lives.
He started writing poetry, then plays, and then got a chance to talk to the editor Gordon Lish for a radio program. The interview was just finishing up and Gordon Lish asked Walter Kirn if he wrote short stories. Kirn had never written any, but he said, yes, he did. So as soon as he got home, he wrote his first story and kept writing them and published his first collection, My Hard Bargain.
Walter Kirn said, “My advice for aspiring writers is go to New York. And if you can’t go to New York, go to the place that represents New York to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people who share your dreams, and where you can talk, talk, talk about your interests. Writing books begins in talking about it, like most human projects, and in being close to those who have already done what you propose to do.”