During the final quarter of the last century, writer Nicholas Basbanes, acclaimed author of A Gentle Madness, enjoyed the rare opportunity as literary editor of the Worcester, Massachusetts, Telegram & Gazette, to interview literally hundreds of authors passing through Boston on publicity tours.
"About the Author: Inside the Creative Process" collects more than forty of Nicholas Basbanes's interviews and essays that includes novelists, biographers, poets, historians, and others who were regularly among the best-selling authors. In addition, "About the Author" publishes for the first time the full interviews with important writers such as novelists A. S. Byatt, Joseph Heller, Edna O'Brien, and Kurt Vonnegut; the critic Alfred Kazan a few months before he died; and columnist Jimmy Breslin.
Perhaps no one has been more suited to this kind of reporting than Basbanes. Using the skills of an experienced interviewer and the considered analysis of an impartial critic, Basbanes pioneered a new kind of journalism for his weekly column. These pieces paint a remarkable picture of authors at the heights of their creativity.