Fires. Essays, Poems, Stories

in this life writing short stories? And I didn't have much self-esteem as a result of this drinking thing. So it's a continual amazement to me, this attention that's come along. But I can tell you that after the reception for What We Talk About, I felt a confidence that I've never felt before. Every good thing that's happened smce has conjoined to
    make me want to do even more and better work. It's been a good spur. And all this coming at a time in my life when I have more strength than I've ever had before. Do you know what I'm saying? I feel stronger and more certain of my direction now than ever before. So "fame"—or let's say this newfound attention and interest—has been a good thing. It bolstered my confidence, when my confidence needed bolstering.
    INTERVIEWER Who reads your writing first?
    CARVER
    Tess Gallagher. As you know, she's a poet and short-story writer herself. I show her everything I write except for letters, and I've even shown her a few of those. But she has a wonderful eye and a way of feeling herself into what I write. I don't show her anything until I've marked it up and taken it as far as I can. That's usually the fourth or fifth draft, and then she reads every subsequent draft thereafter. So far I've dedicated three books to her and those dedications are not just a token of love and affection; they also indicate the high esteem in which I hold her and an acknowledgement of the help and inspiration she's given me.
    INTERVIEWER Where does Gordon Lish enter into this? I know he's your editor at Knopf.
    CARVER
    Just as he was the editor who began publishing my stories at Esquire back in the early 1970s. But we had a friendship that went back before that time, back to 1967 or 1968, in Palo Alto. He was working for a textbook publishing firm right across the street from the firm where I worked. The one that fired me. He didn't keep any regular office hours. He did most of his work for the company at home. At least once a week he'd ask me over to his place for lunch. He wouldn't eat anything himself, he'd just cook something for me and then hover around
    the table watching me eat. It made me nervous, as you might imagine. I'd always wind up leaving something on my plate, and he'd always wind up eating it. Said it had to do with the way he was brought up. This is not an isolated example. He still does things like that. He'll take me to lunch now and won't order anything for himself except a drink and then he'll eat up whatever I leave in my plate! I saw him do it once in the Russian Tea Room. There were four of us for dinner, and after the food came he watched us eat. When he saw we were going to leave food on our plates, he cleaned it right up. Aside from this craziness, which is more funny than anything, he's remarkably smart and sensitive to the needs of a manuscript. He's a good editor. Maybe he's a great editor. All I know for sure is that he's my editor and my friend, and I'm glad on both counts.
    INTERVIEWER Would you consider doing more movie script work?
    CARVER
    If the subject could be as interesting as this one I just finished with Michael Cimino on the life of Dostoyevsky yes, of course. Otherwise, no. But Dostoyevsky! You bet I would.
    INTERVIEWER
    And there was real money involved.
    CARVER
    Yes.
    INTERVIEWER
    That accounts for the Mercedes.
    CARVER
    That's it.
    INTERVIEWER
    What about the New Yorker! Did you ever send your stories to the New Yorker when you were first starting out?
    CARVER No, I didn't. I didn't read the New Yorker. I sent my stories and poems to the little magazines and once in a while something was accepted, and I was made happy by the acceptance, f had some kind of audience, you see, even though I never met any of my audience.
    INTERVIEWER
    Do you &et letters from people who've read your work?
    CARVER Letters, capes, sometimes photographs. Somebody just sent me a cassette—songs that had been made out of some of the stories.
    INTERVIEWER
    Do you write better on the West Coast—out in Washington —or here in the East? I guess I'm asking how important a sense of place is to your work.
    CARVER Once, it was important to see myself as a writer from a particular place. It was important for me to be a writer from the West. But that's not true any longer, for better or worse. I think I've moved around too much, lived in too many places, felt dislocated and displaced, to now have any firmly-rooted sense of "place." If I've ever gone about consciously locating a story in