At Omnivoracious, Jeff VanderMeer offers a "then and now" interview with Rachel Swirsky, comparing the answers she made to questions he asked her in 2007, before having a book out, with the answers she is making now.
Here's a brief taste of one of Rachel's "now" answers:
"I love thinking about short stories! You can get the whole thing in your head and turn it around and keep it turning until you know each facet, each quirk, how all the little events influence each other, how tragedy became inevitable and how it could be avoided, how well people thought they meant even as they started doing things that would hurt people they love... "
"It's an impact of images and emotions and weirdness and someone else's head space, the powerful stuff of life boiled down to its essence. I love the ability to polish the prose until each word placed is the word you completely intend, not just the word that happened to be there. I love shearing prose down to exactly what needs to exist." Yup: she does that marvellously.
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