From her interview with Derek Alger at Pif Magazine:
DA: You were fortunate enough to study with Bernard Malamud.Visit Roxana Robinson’s website.
RR: Malamud was a very good teacher, he was one of the reasons I went to Bennington. The faculty there was phenomenal: I studied with Howard Nemerov and Stanley Edgar Hyman as well as Malamud. Malamud was a very careful teacher, patient and focused. He made us very conscious of the fact that there was no such thing as inspiration, it was work, every day. I admired him very much.
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DA: You went to great lengths to do research for a character in your most recent novel, Cost.
RR: Cost required a lot of research: Alzheimer’s, neurosurgery, and heroin addiction.
One of the characters turned out to be a heroin addict, and he sort of erupted into the narrative. When I found out about him I realized I needed to learn about heroin addicts. I used every kind of research I could – reading, talking to everyone who was connected to that world, and going to meetings of Narcotic Anonymous and meeting the addicts themselves. It was enlightening and humbling.
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DA: Getting back to literature, John Updike was a great influence on you.
RR: When I was in my late teens, I guess, or early twenties, I...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: Cost.
My Book, The Movie: Cost.
--Marshal Zeringue