Q&A with 2012 Featured Author Madeline Miller
Madeline Miller’s debut novel is “The Song of Achilles,” a re-telling of the story of the hero of Greek mythology. Ms. Miller attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. She has also studied in the Dramaturgy department at Yale School of Drama, where she focused on the adaptation of classical texts to modern forms. For the last ten years she has been teaching and tutoring Latin, Greek and Shakespeare to high school students.
Where do you find inspiration?
Walking. All my best ideas come to me when I am on the move. If I am struggling with a scene, the best thing for me to do is to take a few spins around the block, which always helps to shake out the cobwebs.
What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
Even if you hear about another author who’s finished a book in three months, and you’re still toiling away in year three (or, in my case, year ten), don’t get discouraged. A story has it’s own time and won’t be rushed.
I also find it incredibly valuable to put a piece of writing aside for a while, then come back to it. This really lets me see where all the cracks in the foundation are.
What are you reading right now?
I just finished “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline which I very much enjoyed, and am currently reading “I am Mordred” by Nancy Springer. I don’t usually go for Arthurian stories, but it came extremely highly recommended, and now that I’ve started it, I can see why. From the very first sentence, the prose is a perfect mix of beauty, mystery and elegaic simplicity. I am loving it!
What’s your favorite opening line from a book?
I’m afraid my answer is very predictable. The first line of the Iliad: “Sing, goddess, of the terrible rage of Achilles.”
What book has inspired or affected you in some way?
There are so many books that have moved and inspired me over the years, it feels impossible to pick just one. But the book I have loved the longest is “Watership Down.” The story is absolutely dynamite, and what’s amazing is that I still find it just as gripping as the first time I read it. It made me want to write a novel with the same kind of heartrate-elevating finale!
If you could sit down at dinner with three other authors, living or dead, which three authors would you choose, and why?
Gah! Another agonizing choice! One of them is definitely, absolutely, Vergil. I’d have to brush up on my spoken Latin, but I cannot think of any ancient person I would rather meet. He is my ultimate literary hero.
I would also love to speak to Elizabeth von Arnim. She wrote “Enchanted April,” and had a wickedly sharp sense of humor, as well as a brilliant knack for characterization.
And, in the same vein of incredible, whip-smart writers, I would like to add Lorrie Moore. Her novel, “Anagrams,” and her short stories had a profound on me as a writer. After nearly every one of her sentences, I would think: now THAT is a good sentence.
