What a story is, is devious. It pretends transparency, forthrightness.…

Joy Williams
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What a story is, is devious. It pretends transparency, forthrightness. It engages with ordinary people, ordinary matters, recognizable stuff. But this is all a masquerade. What good stories deal with is the horror and incomprehensibility of time, the dark encroachment of old catastrophes... ✨ Joy Williams, The Art of Fiction No. 223. Interview with Paul Winner, www.theparisreview.org. 2014.
Humanity Time
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Good writing never soothes or comforts. It is no prescription, neither is it diversionary, although it can and should enchant while it explodes in the reader's face. ✨ Joy Williams (2015). Ill Nature … ▶
You have never seen such animals as these who without a sound or a sign carry you off. You race with them across the long familiar ground that in that moment seems so glorious, so charged with beauty … ▶
I think I had the same notion most people have, which is it’s simply a town that percolates around country music. Though country-music history is deep and richly steeped throughout the city, this is … ▶
The story knows itself better than the writer does at some point, knows what's being said before the writer figures out how to say it.
As you grow older, you'll find that you enjoy talking to strangers far more than to your friends. ✨ Joy Williams (2016). The Visiting Privilege, p.36, Profile Books

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