Andrew Shaffer Recommends...

“This is going to sound very meta, but when I need a kick in the pants I like to read author interviews. There’s nothing more inspiring to me than eavesdropping on another writer talking shop.

Writing books is oftentimes a solitary, lonely process. Authors discussing their own processes gives me a sense of connectedness to a larger community that extends hundreds of years into the past. It’s helpful to know you’re not alone. I’m particularly fond of book-length conversations, such as David Lipsky’s portrait of David Foster Wallace, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, and Lady Blessington’s Conversations With Lord Byron. In fact, the longer the interview, the longer I can procrastinate from returning to my work-in-progress. Speaking of which…”
Andrew Shaffer, author of Literary Rogues: A Scandalous History of Wayward Authors (Harper Perennial, 2013)