Hosted By
“Not everyone who’s lucky is talented and not everyone who’s talented is lucky.” –Tom Bissell
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tom talk about Tom’s lack of travel experience when he joined the Peace Corps, and how he dealt with his early failures (2:30); the role that luck (as well as craft and obsessive reading) has played in his writing career (8:00); how, as a writer, to turn real-life people, including yourself, into convincingly human and honest nonfiction “characters” (16:00); Tom “failures” as a writer, the challenges of screenwriting, and the difficulty of writing books that sell (38:30); the book that Tom is most proud of, and how to get out of the success/failure dichotomy as a creative person (47:00); plus a post-interview segment about drinking in Paris (56:00).
Tom Bissell is an American author, journalist, critic, and screenwriter. He is the author of such books as Chasing the Sea, Apostle, God Lives in St. Petersburg, Extra Lives, and The Disaster Artist.
Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.
Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].
“The perception that most Americans have about the original Thanksgiving is very much a Hallmark-card stereotype, where the native people and the colonists came...
“The Sears Christmas Wish Book was, for me, a kind of foundational text — a secular counterpoint to the Bible stories I learned around...
“I think the fate of humanity ultimately rests on how we conserve and protect that thin, magical layer of soil on this planet” –...
