Laura van den Berg

America loves a good comeback story!

— Laura van den Berg

I lived in Florida until I was 22.

— Laura van den Berg

I know some writers that have a million novel ideas, but I don't.

— Laura van den Berg

I always tell my students that, in fiction, the opening is a clue to the work's DNA: not only what it is,…

— Laura van den Berg

“I was raised in the desert and always appreciated the way its landscape gives you a chance to see what's coming. In…

— Laura van den Berg

As a young writer, I was sort of sailing around trying to 'find my voice' - for lack of a better term…

— Laura van den Berg

Like many American readers, I was first introduced to Magda Szabo's work when New York Review Books reissued the Hungarian master's profound…

— Laura van den Berg

“My husband is nervous about a lot of things down here, like the monstrous size of the fire ants and the quality…

— Laura van den Berg

In fiction, we are not bound by social convention, so the things that mystify and unsettle are allowed to rise to the…

— Laura van den Berg

I think where a writer falls on the realism/non-realism continuum has a lot to do with their sight, as in, 'This is…

— Laura van den Berg

Fiction accesses a certain kind of truth through artifice. I love to create worlds that operate on their own terms.

— Laura van den Berg

I am temperamentally drawn to work that shoves the strange and normal against one another, it's true, although I don't see the…

— Laura van den Berg

Early influences included Lorrie Moore, Amy Hempel, Charles Baxter, Richard Ford, Alice Munro, Denis Johnson - writers who are important to me…

— Laura van den Berg