Subjects covered
Author Laurie Ann Doyle discussed her short story collection, World Gone Missing, including some of the stories themselves.
All of the stories are set in or around San Francisco, and in each someone has gone missing, sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically.
Laurie discussed the main theme uniting all of the stories, i.e., the presence of felt absence, including where it has previously appeared in literature and how it can be useful to writers today.
Asked why she chose to write short stories as opposed to a novel, Laurie noted that Alice Munro’s Moons of Jupiter had helped get her inspired with the short story as a form.
Laurie emphasized that she sees the short story form as just as relevant as the novel—and that there is a place for both. She also discussed differences between the two, such as the need to be more of a perfectionist in the shorter form and the need for its ending to resound in a way that is perhaps not quite as important in a novel.
Laurie is currently working on a novel set in the San Francisco Bay Area.
She also has an article coming out in Alta Journal about the Hopi Indians incarcerated on Alcatraz in 1895.
Podcast editing and episode notes by author and podcast producer and host Matthew Félix (matthewfelix.com).