Paris Review DNA Of Literature

The Paris Review‘s long-awaited DNA of Literature project will be formally launched later this month. Thanks to a grant from the NEA, the magazine’s archives of interviews (nearly 300 in total) from their Writers At Work series will be made available to the public free of charge. The first part should go online very soon, with parts 2 through 6 scheduled for release from early 2005 to mid-2005. Mark Hazlin, writing in USA Today about the project, provides a peek into one of the interviews–with William Faulkner.

In the interview, [Faulkner] was candid and profound about his craft. “If a writer has to rob his mother he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies,” he said, referring to John Keats’ famous poem.
And he was funny: “Between scotch and nothing, I’ll take scotch.

(Thanks to Dan for the USA Today link.)