On the way to a Ph.D. in political science, Dubus went to Massachusetts and took a year off. He lived in a welfare neighborhood, worked construction during the day, and read philosophy at night. He was dating a girl who was taking a writing class, and began to read fiction. Dubus was inspired to write a short story about people. It wasn't very good, but he was hooked. While writing, he was more "Andre" than ever. In the process of writing The Garden of Last Days he saw a Charlie Rose interview with the director Mike Nichols who noted that the storyteller asks what it is like to be in a story.
This means for Dubus that he becomes "pregnant with a story." Cells are multiplying and he does not analyze it, think about it, or talk about it. "Ideas bubble up and get sublimated" then result in a story. He writes a couple of hours each day in long-hand with a pencil, then types it into his laptop the next day and revises. Writing is "not telling but finding something," he says. He quotes Grace Paley, "You write what you don't know you don't know."
Married to the dancer Fontaine Dallas, they live outside Boston with their three children. Andre Dubus teaches writing when he is not writing himself.
This means for Dubus that he becomes "pregnant with a story." Cells are multiplying and he does not analyze it, think about it, or talk about it. "Ideas bubble up and get sublimated" then result in a story. He writes a couple of hours each day in long-hand with a pencil, then types it into his laptop the next day and revises. Writing is "not telling but finding something," he says. He quotes Grace Paley, "You write what you don't know you don't know."
Married to the dancer Fontaine Dallas, they live outside Boston with their three children. Andre Dubus teaches writing when he is not writing himself.
