Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Days of Wonder, With or Without You, Cruel Beautiful World, Is This Tomorrow, Pictures of You, and eight other books. Several of her books have been optioned for film, translated into different languages, and condensed in magazines. She is currently at work on her next novel.

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I know, I know. Maybe you’ve read all of a writer’s work so closely that you feel you know them. You’re sure if you ever met up, you could sit at a café for hours and never run out of things to talk about. But I’ve come to learn that honesty on the page has nothing to do with how a writer reveals themselves in real life. And I’ve learned from interviewing my literary heroes for my podcast A Mighty Blaze just how different those two things can be, and how it can change the way you read their work. 

Along with Jenna Blum, I co-founded A Mighty Blaze the first day of lockdown and we began to do live (and recorded) Zoom interviews. At first, I was excited to be able to talk with writers I loved, but then I got terrified. Would they think I was worthy of conversing with them for 40 minutes, or would they feel I was wasting their time, or worse, just a means to a publicity end? Would the fact that someone was so brilliant and serious on the page mean I had to make my questions more serious? Being an anxious person, I over-prepared and tried to imagine every scenario that might occur. But I soon discovered that preconceived notions about what a writer might be like are just that…preconceived.

One of my favorite writers on the planet is Lauren Groff. Her novels are serious and startlingly written. I admit I was nervous about talking with her, but to my surprise and absolute delight, from the moment Lauren logged onto the screen, she was hilarious and approachable, and I was laughing so hard, I forgot my anxiety. Her ability to be so wonderfully silly made her serious work even richer to me. Her willingness to risk everything on the page was the same as her willingness to embrace goofiness and see where it might lead her…just like plot.

But sometimes, as I had feared, interviews fall flat. Maybe it has to do with body language that I misread, which was certainly the case with one literary writer, known for her expansive, intimate novels, all of which I revered. But on air, she was quiet, subdued, and deeply controlled. She didn’t laugh or even smile when I cracked jokes, and she gave short answers to every question. I left the interview blaming myself, believing my questions weren’t good enough. And also, well, she didn’t like me—which of course, says more about me than it does about her.

But months later, we met again at a literary festival and she was sitting alone, so I sat next to her and we began to talk. The conversation was so natural and relaxed, that I finally blurted, you are so different than when I interviewed you! She nodded and said she knew that sometimes she gave that impression, but it was because she was shy and introverted. “My face never really shows my feelings,” she admitted. Hearing that made me love her—and her work–even more. It just added a whole other dimension to my appreciation of her.

Sometimes, of course, things do go really badly. Once, a writer said something that I found shockingly racist and it made me see her whole career in a very different light. Another time, a writer refused to answer a question and scolded me for asking it. And still another time, a writer took over the interview, giving it to her husband!

But let’s turn back to the absolute joy. Recently, I interviewed Marisa Silver for her brilliant new book, At Last. I prepared and prepared because I had admired her work for so long and had even reviewed it for the Boston Globe years ago. The biggest delight was not the interview itself, which was so deeply conversational that I forgot we were on screen. It was afterwards, when we were done, and just talking in the green room afterwards. Marissa asked “Where do you live? We should have coffee! Want to?”

Of course I did! And we did!

Interviews can be as real and disturbing as real life. But what I love best is when the discovery goes way beyond that, when there is the real surprise of connection. I don’t over-plan my interviews anymore. In fact, I ask writers to come on early before we’re live, just so we can swap stories and both feel more relaxed. I still never know how an interview will go or how much of a connection might be made. But now, I’ve discovered, that’s the pure joy of it.

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