Bob Shacochis, a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is something of a contrarian in this On the Fly interview. He expresses his disdain for social media, for the notion of influences on his work, and for his former publisher. He even suggests he dislikes writing itself, saying, “I really don’t like to write anywhere, not even where I’m supposed to be comfortable writing.”
Shacochis is the author of the short story collections Easy in the Islands and The Next New World, the first of which garnered a National Book Award for First Work of Fiction. His first novel, Swimming in the Volcano, was a finalist for the National Book Award. His most recent novel, the writing of which Shacochis refers to in this interview, is 2013’s The Woman Who Lost Her Soul. The book was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Shacochis is also the author of several works of nonfiction, including Domesticity: A Gastronomic Interpretation of Love; The Immaculate Invasion; and Conversations with Cuba.
