Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Benjamin Hale has resigned himself to answering questions about the chimp/human sex in his novel The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore. But in this On the Fly interview—recorded in February 2011, a few weeks after the novel’s release—he also discusses working on the novel in the Art Library in Art Building West on the University of Iowa Campus, his tendency to be a “simile slut,” and his notion that the psychology of art and of religion are connected.
He also considers the importance of a writer’s voice: “I think that one of the most important elements of good writing is confidence in your voice—is to write like you believe that what you are saying deserves to be heard. And I think that all truly great writing has that in common.”
Hale has collected the Bard Fiction Prize and a Michener-Copernicus Award. His work has also been nominated for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award.
