Dan Chaon
Dan Chaon
Dan Chaon is an American writer. He is the author of three short story collections and two novels, including Among the Missing, which was a 2001 finalist for the National Book Award. Chaon's stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize Anthologies, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline Delaney Professor of Creative Writing and Literature...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
stories mystery short-story
I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them.
character thinking issues
Identity issues are hardwired into the way I think about character - it's almost as if I can't get away from them even if I want to.
memories self together
Our sense of self is a kind of construct. It is in some ways like a novel, and it's like a fabric of fictions that we patch together from memory.
kids wife my-wife
The happiest I have ever been is in the life that I led with my wife and kids.
eye thinking trying
Fiction is a particular kind of rhetoric, a way of thinking that I think can be useful in your life. It asks you to image the world through someone else's eyes, and it allows you to try to empathize with situations that you haven't actually experienced.
teacher writing thinking
I think we're always in some ways writing to the teachers who gave us early love.
writing years punishment
For the last few years I've tried to force myself to write at least one page every day, which doesn't sound like much but it's actually pretty hard to manage. Because I'm not allowed to do a make-up day. I can't do two pages the next day. The punishment for not completing my page is that I have to eat a vegetarian meal the next day.
people feels
You can't tell people how to feel when they read your work. You can only hope to connect.
adventure car verge
There is your car and the open road, the fabled lure of random adventure. You stand at the verge, and you could become anything.