We know that we need to explore desire in fiction - many say that the only way a story exists is that a character feels a strong desire - and nature is the place where creatures act on their desires in the most pure way imaginable, so maybe nature also works as a metaphor for whatever emotional troubles my characters have to negotiate. I'm interested in my characters as survivors, and maybe that works best when the old-fashioned notion of humans surviving in wilderness is not too far away.
Bonnie Jo CampbellWhere I live you're not supposed to shoot a firearm within a quarter mile of a dwelling.
Bonnie Jo CampbellA mathematical proof is beautiful, but when you're finished, it's really only about one thing. A story can be about many things.
Bonnie Jo CampbellSome people tell me they would be afraid of my characters, but I tell those people [that] they meet these characters all the time. They just don't care about them when they meet them, at the gas station, the car wash, the post office even.
Bonnie Jo CampbellI loved writing for the school newspaper. I liked to report and interview people, but I really liked to write columns, funny columns.
Bonnie Jo CampbellI can't personally drink or fight too much nowadays because I have to be perky in the morning in order to write.
Bonnie Jo CampbellMostly the natural landscapes work as a sounding board for my characters, so they can understand themselves, and it acts as a mirror in which we readers see ourselves. The natural world is the place into which all my characters have to situate themselves in order to be who they really are, and that makes my rural fiction feel different from a lot of urban fiction.
Bonnie Jo Campbell