John Irving Interview with Don Swaim

Audio Interview with John Irving

John Irving and Don Swaim John Irving (left) and Don Swaim in the process
of interviewing in New York, 1985.

John Irving, author of The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and others, discusses with Don Swaim in this 1985 interview about his most recently published book at the time, The Cider House Rules.

What Swaim described as strong characterization, Irving termed a requirement. According to Irving, it is necessary that a writer spend as much time and effort on his minor characters as he does with his major characters. Irving also took great care to consult with an expert for the parts pertaining to the medical field.

Irving also discusses the art of teaching creative writing isn’t the same as teaching biology or math. He says it’s not like the traditional teacher-student environment, but more like a community of interested peers.

Swaim and Irving also touch on the part of the business of professional writing that any author can love or hate: reviews. A review can make a book thrive on the bestseller’s list for months at a time, or it can kill it before it hits the shelves. It takes a thick skin to survive in this business, according to Irving. But, he takes more to heart the reaction from his peers than he does of reviews.

To hear more about the book and about Irving’s writing process, click on the link below.

Listen to the John Irving interview with Don Swaim, 1985 (45 min. 05 sec.)

Four years later, Irving returns to chat with Swaim about his new book A Prayer for Owen Meany.

Irving spends much of this interview explaining the story in detail including the characterization of his main character, Owen Meany, and the influence of the Gospels on his writing.

Listen to the John Irving interview with Don Swaim, 1989 (43 min. 50 sec.)

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For over a decade, many of the best writers of the English language found their way onto Don Swaim's daily two-minute CBS Radio show, Book Beat. His New York-based program was derived from longer interviews, sometimes 40-minutes in length. Found exclusively here, Wired for Books proudly webcasts these conversations in their entirety using RealAudio.

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