Bookpleasures.com welcomesas our guest author, poet, and screenwriter, Barry Gifford. Barry's work includes the novel Wild at Heart, which was adapted by David Lynch into a Palme d’Or-winning film, and Sailor and Lula.

He has authored dozens of other screenplays, novels and books of poetry and essays.

He has recently published Roy's World: Stories 1973-2020, a collection of Barry's most acclaimed short stories that show America from a different vantage point, a certain mix of innocence and worldliness.

Reminiscent of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Ernest Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, Gifford's "Roy stories" amount to the coming-of-age novel he never wrote, and are one of his most important literary achievements—time-pieces that preserve the lost worlds of 1950s Chicago and the American South, the landscape of postwar America seen through the lens of a boy's steady gaze.

The book is a tie-in to the new documentary, Roy's World, directed by Rob Christopher narrated by Lili Taylor, Matt Dillon and Willem Dafoe.

Norm: Good day Barry and thanks for participating in our interview.

How did you get started in writing? What keeps you going?


Barry: . I began writing stories when I was 11 yrs old. Doing the same now.

Norm: What do you consider to be your greatest success (or successes) so far in your career?

Barry: My greatest success has been staying alive + getting my work done. Commercially speaking, some of my books+movies have done well, others less well. The point is to maintain a readership. André Gide said a writer should expect with each new book to lose half of his/her audience, but gain a new 50%.


Norm: If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor and why?

Barry: I’ve been fortunate to have individuals throughout my life who have made suggestions as to whom I should be reading. I’m basically self-educated, erratic early schooling, only 1 yr of college. Always sought out people I think have something to teach me, still do.

Norm: What would you like to accomplish as an author that you have not? 

Barry: Yet to accomplish? Not applicable. Keep it a mystery.

Norm: What did you find most useful in learning to write?  What was least useful or most destructive?   

Barry: Useful/Not useful: Fiercely protective of my time.

Norm: What helps you focus when you write and do you find it easy reading back your own work?

Barry: Focus:Ability to concentrate is most important—live in the work.

Norm: What do you see as the influences on your writing?

Barry: Too many to enumerate. Began by emulating Conrad,London, Melville, but women such as Willa Cather, Jean Rhys, Jane Bowles, Lady Murasaki+Sei Shonagon became more important.

Norm: Do you write more by logic or intuition, or some combination of the two?  Please summarize your writing process.

Barry: Writing process: Don’t force it. If I don’t feel like writing I go to the racetrack or play music with my granddaughters.

Norm: What do you want your work to do? Amuse people? Provoke thinking?

Barry: .Amuse or provoke? BOTH

Norm: Could you tell us about Roy's World: Stories 1973-2020 and the tie-in documentary Roy's World?

Barry: Roy’s World won’t end until I do. The documentary film of same title is amazingly  accurate re sensibility + responsibility to the work+life:”I believe in individuals,” said Chekhov. I’m with him.

Norm: Where can our readers find out more about you and Roy's World: Stories 1973-2020 and the tie-in documentary Roy's World?

Barry: My Website

Norm: What is next for Barry Gifford?

Barry: .What’s next? You tell me. I prefer not knowing, that way I can surprise myself.

Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors