Francine Prose

I went through college in the 1960s without having any idea that I was going to have to make a living. When I graduated in 1968 it was quite a shock to find out that there was a world out there and that it wasn't going to support me.

Long before the idea of a writer's conference was a glimmer in anyone's eye, writers learned by reading the work of their predecessors. They studied meter with Ovid, plot construction with Homer, comedy with Aristophanes; they honed their prose style by absorbing the lucid sentences of Montaigne and Samuel Johnson.

Do I sometimes hope I wake up in the morning and people are like, 'What's wrong with her? She looks emaciated.' Of course I would love that. I'm such a clothes whore, I would love the opportunity to be a hanger. But I think I'm more confident than I've ever felt in my life.