You’re stumped: How to get that novel of yours going? How to draw from personal experience? Maybe: how to turn a short story into a novel?
Tom Franklin, who teaches in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi, has a few words on these matters, on the occasion of his just-released Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (William Morrow), a Mississippi-set novel that is already getting great press and great book-industry recognition (here; here).
He’s reading from and signing copies of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter tonight, Thursday, October 7th, 6 p.m. at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis, in a joint reading with his friend, the multiple-award-winning crime novelist Laura Lippman (her latest: I’d Know You Anywhere, also from Morrow).
But as for that matter: getting things going. To begin:
