Debra Spark: Raiding the Larder – Research in Fact-Based Fiction (July 2013)

Combining her own interviews with Charles Baxter, David Bezmozgia, Lily King, and Jim Shepard with online and print interviews with Kate Atkinson, Colum McCann and William Maxwell, Debra Spark discusses how contemporary writers use research to inspire, authenticate and correct their narratives. While always emphasizing that research is a means to a fictive end, not a goal in itself, she explores the artistic and personal pleasures of going to the library, interviewing, traveling, and even Googling obsessively.