The Art of the Interview in Seattle writing class.

Learn the Art of Interviewing in Seattle writing classes.
Learn the Art of Interviewing in Seattle writing classes.

THE ART OF THE INTERVIEW

Interviewing is an essential skill for any writer, one of the skills I’ll be teaching in my upcoming Seattle writing class. Almost all non-fiction articles and books require some interviewing as part of the research. Novelists, poets and others frequently need to interview people. There are several reasons for interviewing: 1) Background  info; 2) Support quotes; 3) Full fledged interview for profile, story or memoir or novel background.

Procedure:

1) Explanation of ground rules – Tell subject about yourself and your credentials. Explain where you want to publish the interview, profile, etc. Also discuss how you’ll use their answers, whether they can review the profile before it is published.

2) Contact a magazine or newspaper to see if you can get them to agree in advance to publish the interview. This helps a lot. Famous people want to know that their time is well-spent, that the interview will be published. If you can assure them of this, they’re more likely to grant the interview.

3) Time – Plan ahead: really newsworthy people are frequently difficult to get in touch with. Contact them early, and always double check date and time right before interview.

4) Place – Make sure it’s quiet, and in a place where you won’t be interrupted. Restaurants are not the best place to use a tape recorder.

5) Prepare – Like a good boy scout, interviewers should always be prepared. Saturate yourself in the subject. Find out everything you can about them. Ideally, you should know the person so well that you can predict with great accuracy how they will answer your questions. This is obviously much easier with a famous person. Example, when working on my first book, At the Field’s End, I interviewed the then relatively unknown Marilynne Robinson as well as the famous poet Gary Snyder. It look a lot more work to come up with questions for Robinson.

We’ll discuss all of this in more detail in my upcoming Seattle writing class. Sign up early to get a spot!