I think three of my interlocutors were doing their first author interviews. Cambridge, Stevens, and Smith. Stevens and Smith both approached me on the basis of my cooperating with an as yet to be designated interviewer of some unforeseeable stature, but Steve and Paul wrote proposals which revealed that they knew much of my stuff cold, so I proposed that they just do the job, and they did. When Alex Pepple asked me to interview Alan for Able Muse, I'd never done it, and it had to be short. I think I came up with fourteen questions, but it was like being the caddy, teeing up the ball for Nicklaus. Obviously I knew every word he'd written, and Alan responded with thoughtful essays, not cursory quips.
The great ones in this genre are Bill Baer, former editor of the Formalist, whose interviews with authors graced the pages of his magazine and continue in Measure. Bill's interviews with Gioia and Wilbur gave me my notion of how this sort of thing should be done. Then Cynthia Havens, who has interviewed Steele, Mason, Murphy, Davis, lord knows how many authors--and who would NEVER come to an interview without knowing the author cold. Cortland Review, that's where Cynthia interviewed me, and it is on line, so I suspect it can be found, along with mp3 files. We were both rather new to this, then, but how hard she worked! Gerry Cambridge parleyed his experience into many subsequent interviews for the Dark Horse.
At first, we were tape-recording telephone conversations in which I was half-smashed. Later we were using facsimile machines, the means by which Phil Hoy made his Hecht masterpiece. Now, Paul Stevens and I can bat Q and A back and forth by email. Gerry Cambridge reacted to my assertion that my interview with Paul was the best I'd done, by vehemently protesting that The Horse was the best. Peace to Gerry, but I just reread the SCRII interview, and it's better. In the intervening years the interviewee did some growing. Tim
[This message has been edited by Tim Murphy (edited September 08, 2008).]
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