speaking of faith. the novelist as god.
It’s the great sweep of time that allows us to make sense of our lives and the lives of people.
I subscribed to American Public Media’s newsletter “Speaking of Faith” several months ago, but never got around to reading or listening to any of it until tonight. After a few minutes I started taking notes like this:
(Novelists) know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live.

Interesting interview with Pulitzer Prize nominee, the captivating Mary Doria Russell. Plus, she talks about Steve Martin. And Flynn will tell you what’s up with that.
There’s no ignoring the ‘faith-cenetric’ aspect of the piece but it’s more about the novelist playing the role of God, as as a creator of peoples and worlds.