Garrison Keillor

I’m glad that sales of my books have dropped to where serious literary journals now take an interest in me.
-Garrison Keillor

INTERVIEWER: Could we start by asking if the process of writing is pleasurable?

Sometimes, but it doesn’t have to be; you still have to do your work. I write for a radio show that, no matter what, will go on the air Saturday at five o’clock central time. You learn to write toward that deadline, to let the adrenaline pick you up on Friday morning and carry you through, to cook up a monologue about Lake Wobegon and get to the theater on time. That can be pleasurable, but only if the material you write is good. If it’s not, you’re filled with self-loathing. If the material is good and funny, you still loathe yourself, of course, for writing comedy and lighthearted fluff instead of writing serious and loathsome fiction, but . . . What was your question?

- Garrison Keillor, Paris Review