Two Thieves: Debut Authors on Self-Plagiarism, Theft, and Sample
What drives us to steal? To become a thief? To get the things we want—physical objects, words, ideas—by taking them?
Magic, magical realism, or magical thinking are the ultimate expression of powerlessness, but they are also holders of the possibility of a better, more just, world.
One of the great potentials of science fiction is its ability to relativize our own experience, to put it in different contexts.
It sort of seems old-fashioned now, but I consider myself a social realist. I like to work on big canvases. I like books that take on the whole world.
Forever—a terrifying idea in many regards. It’s not proper to earthly creatures.
I felt a kindred experience in Isabel Allende while writing here in the United States but thinking about Venezuela and dealing with all these feelings about being apart from it . . . guilt, love, nostalgia for my home country that I knew I probably was never going to live in again.
In history there are clear patterns that we actively choose to look away from, rather than engage. Our relationship with technology is one. [It has] a particular rhythm: one step forward, one step back. A help. A harm.
If there is something quintessentially modern it’s the idea that we are the authors of our own minds, the authors of our own reality. And what we create . . . is exciting precisely because it springs out of us and does not conform to something that is already there. The idea of novelty is a novelty.
For around thirty-five years, the condition of my skin is something I have thought about and dealt with almost every day, so it inevitably has affected my perception of myself and likely how others see me, too.
How much weirdness is acceptable and what becomes gross or nauseating? What is the limit? I find it interesting for the body too. . . What’s the limit of grossing out a reader and having someone stay with a story?