Pete Hamill on writing

ournalist, novelist and short-story writer Pete Hamill doesn't often sit down for an interview, but he did recently (via the phone) with Mark Bialczak of the Syracuse, N.Y., Post-Standard. Here are a few gems from that lengthy piece, which appeared online:

On self-editing:
The "one good thing about writing a novel is obviously you are your own editor. Journalism is a team sport. Writing novels is golf, it's you and the ball. Unlike the movies, the writer has final cut. It's not up to the guy with the money how to edit the thing. It's up to you as the writer."

On writing for a newspaper:
"I always thought of the newspaper as my graduate school, a graduate school from which you never can graduate. You can see the world change before your eyes and have a ringside seat to most of it."

On the future of newspapers:
The "delivery system is still 19th century. We write it, they print it, they bundle it and throw it on trucks and drive it places. I think that's probably doomed. But we're not yet into a full-fledged Internet. ... The thing that is unique to a newspaper is they can bring a little serendipity into it."

On reading:
"I think it's absolutely necessary that the written word survive. And I think it will. One reason is that the act of reading is active. ...

"I think the act of reading, taking these little codes and turning them into images and ideas that trigger stuff in your memory, these little things called words, if we lose that who knows what happens to us. If you can't read very well you can't read the Constitution. Never mind reading James Joyce."

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