Beginning with the publication of her first novel, "Chilly Scenes of Winter," in 1976, Ann Beattie established herself as a keen and dry observer of her generation. She's received a PEN award and been honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her collection "The New Yorker Stories" was named a notable book of 2010 by the New York Times.
Her newest book, "Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life," which was published this week by Scribner, is a fascinating departure -- fiction based on fact, in which Beattie reconstructs scenes from Pat Nixon's life, trying to understand and imagine her point of view.
Sadly, Beattie is not coming to the Midwest on her tour, but she did agree to subject herself to our 10 questions for an author.
Q: Describe your writing room.
A: I live in three places, but right now my writing room in Maine looks like this: It was painted Band-Aid pink when we bought the house 20 years ago, and I've never had it painted. My desk is an old table bought in Virginia in 1976, missing one board. There are piles of books on the floor; the "system" makes sense only to me. I trip over them in the dark. I write with my computer raised up on the "Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary," and when my computer's electronic dictionary fails me, I have to move the computer aside to consult the book. There are too many small things on the desk to describe, but among them: cabinet cards [with photos] of children, bought on eBay; the "calendar of birthdays," sometimes even opened to the correct month; three pill bottles, one bottle of water, one huge bottle of Lancome "O" cologne, which smells to me like Paris, where I first bought it; two pictures of my husband; one picture of me with my mother, both in ballet costumes; a vase of the year's last cosmos, mixed with some mint and lemon verbena I picked hours before the first frost; a little brass bird my husband gave me that has big feet, like he does; piles of papers in a landslide to the left and also the right ("system" not even known to me). A mouse pad, a mug of chai tea made by my husband, many pens printed with my friend Bob Adelman's name, and then there is the annex to the desk: an overflowing footstool. Photograph on request.
Q: What is your writing strategy -- do you have rituals that you maintain?
A: I don't have a writing strategy. I hardly maintain anything, including myself.
Q: How do you get past writers' block (or the distraction of the Internet)?
