Mona Simpson’s advice to young writers is straightforward. She advises them to make “the best life you can make that incorporates a lot of time to read and write.”
Simpson—whose On the Fly interview was recorded in October 2010 when she visited Iowa City to read from her novel, My Hollywood, at Prairie Lights—has found time to do plenty of writing herself. In addition to My Hollywood, she is the author Anywhere But Here, The Lost Father, A Regular Guy, Off Keck Road, and The Casebook.
Anywhere But Here won the Whiting Prize and was adapted into a movie. Simpson has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors.
