Great interview with Diana!

5/07/2013 06:57:00 AM


Check out this terrific interview with Diana Gabaldon on Barbara Rogan's blog, In Cold Ink. I really enjoyed it. Such a pleasure to read an interview where Diana has the opportunity for longer, more in-depth responses!

This is Part 1 of a two-part interview.

[UPDATE 5/14/2013 6:45 am: Part 2 is here.]

I've known Barbara for about five years online. She's one of the section leaders of the Writers Exercises section on the Compuserve Books and Writers Community. (For those of you who don't know, that's the online forum where Diana Gabaldon hangs out, and I'm section leader of the Diana Gabaldon folder there.) If you're an aspiring writer, or just a reader who's interested in how the publishing process works, check out Barbara's blog!

I would love to interview Diana here on Outlandish Observations, if I can come up with some questions that haven't been asked a thousand times before. I've been thinking about it for a while. It would be a lot of fun, I'm sure.

Leave a Comment

2 comments

Walking Tree Nature Cetner said...

you could post a question asking people for question to ask Diana. I did that when they asked for question durning the event in Virgina but they didn't ask my question, they asked the same ol' questions. . .I think you have a great idea to ask what hasn't been asked before. My questions btw were about Master Raymond and I want to ask DG why she thinks her books are so different from other modern authors (or something like that). :)

May 7, 2013 at 7:16 AM
Anonymous said...

I have so many questions I would love to ask Diana!
I would love to ask her a question about a comment of hers I read once. Someone was commenting negatively about Black Jack Randall and Diana was thinking to herself - "you don't realise you're sitting next to BJR do you?!". In the context of that comment I would love to ask her how much of these evil characters are drawn from her nature, especially the truly despicable ones like Hodgepile. Does she think that we all have a well of evil inside us? How can she write evil so convincingly and yet be so nice?

I would also like to ask her some serious questions about the influence of technology on her writing. Diana was one of the first writers to really use the internet to connect with others and she engages tremendously with her readers. She says that her readers opinions don't have any influence on her writing, but how can it not? There are definitely things in her books that seem to have been written with the express purpose of answering some of the questions raised by readers, e.g. the Epilogue in ABOSAA which tried to explain the mistake with the dates in the paper, and the short story A Leaf on All Hallows which seems to have been written to titillate readers rather than for any other purpose. I would like to know if she would have written either of these things if she wasn't so engaged with her readers.

I would also like to know if the adulation and worship she gets on websites such as this and CompuServe make if difficult for her to honestly critique her own work. Does it help or hinder her growth as a writer.

Oh so many questions I could ask!!

May 10, 2013 at 5:51 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments ( Atom )
Powered by Blogger.