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Warren Adler
Website:
WarrenAdler.com
Scroll
down for Author Interview
Warren Adler is a novelist, short
story writer and playwright. His books have been translated into more
than 25 languages and two of his novels, The War of the Roses and
Random Hearts, have been made into movies. Three short stories from his
collection The Sunset Gang have been adapted as a trilogy and shown on
Public Television stations. His stage adaptation of the novel The War
of the Roses is currently being produced in Italy, Berlin, Hamburg,
Prague and countries in Scandinavia. Mr. Adler has acquired his
complete backlist and converted this entire library to digital
publishing formats. He lectures on creative writing, motion picture
adaptation and the future of Electronic Books, runs his own short story
competition, and is the founder of the Jackson Hole Writer's Conference.
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| Short
story collections |
New York Echoes (Stonehouse Press/Warren
Adler, Feb
2008)
Reviewed by
Jason Makansi
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The Sunset Gang (Viking Press,
1977)
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Never Too Late for Love (Homestead
Publishing, 1995)
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Jackson Hole: An Uneasy Eden (Homestead
Publishing, 1997)
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The Washington Dossier Stories
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Interview
with Warren Adler
The
Short Review:
How long did it take you to write all the stories in your collection?
Warren Adler: Six
months.
TSR: Did you
have a collection in mind when you were writing them?
WA: Yes. I had returned
to my home town New York City after 40 years and wanted to put my
creative stamp on it. I wrote furiously for months turning out 42
stories, putting 22 in this first collection. Cynthia Nixon read six of
these stories on audible.com. She was marvelous.
TSR: How did
you choose which stories to include and in what order?
WA: I tried to put
the stories in some rhythmic order that was purely subjective, trying
to place them by judging dark to light, serious to lighter, less irony
to heavy irony.
TSR: What does the word "story"
mean to you?
WA: To
me story is fundamental and defines us as human beings. What happens
next is the heart of the story and the pattern of all life which is a
beginning, a middle and and an end. It is also the great mystery since
no human being can ever know "what happens next."
TSR: Do you
have a "reader" in mind when you write stories?
WA: I
do not have a reader in mind, but I do hope that the reader, whoever he
or she is, gets it, joins my characters in their emotional and
intellectual journey and understand the situations in which they are
place. I work hard to find a universality.
TSR: Is there
anything you'd like to ask someone who has read your
collection,
anything at all?
WA: Yes. Did these
stories touch you emotionally or intellectually? Have they enhanced
your understand of human beings and the human condition? Did you want
to know what happened next?
TSR: How does it feel knowing that people are buying your books?
WA: Naturally I
would love to share my work with others. But the truth is that it is
the work itself that matters most and I hope people who read them learn
something about life and are entertained and stimulated by what I have
written.
TSR: What are
you working on now?
WA: I've just begun
yet another novel about how the enhancement and achievement of women
have impacted on men. That is the general theme that underlines the
plot and story.
TSR: What are
the three most recent short story collections you've read?
WA: I read the
short stories of Hemingway again and again to remind me about how
brevity and condensation can power a work of the imagination. I also
reread John O'Hara and de Maupassant
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