Jon Foley

I like to write and spend time with my dog. Everything is pretend. Jonathan Franzen once said, "Inauthentic people are obsessed with authenticity." It's true. The things that are real can only be explained through experience. That is why fiction is so useful, it is truth presented experientially. Robert Olen Butler taught me about that. There is a reason Jesus spoke in parables.

As far as getting at truth in fiction, Cormac McCarthy once said, "Anything that doesn't take years of your life and nearly drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing." That's sort of my approach to writing. And as far as the readers that I am interested in, they prefer long fiction. I have very little interest in anyone who has any desire to find truth in 1,000 words. Truth is complex. Simple narratives are bad narratives.

If you want a simple narrative then you're a fucking dope. I have no use for dopes.