'Readers want to participate'

 

“I write in expectation that readers want to participate in a kind of two-sided game: They are trying to guess what I am up to - what the story's up to - and I'm giving them clues and matter to keep them interested without giving everything away at the start.” – John Crowley

Born in Maine on this date in 1942, Crowley went to high school and college in Indiana before moving to New York City “to make movies,” starting his career in documentary films.   In 1975, his first novel The Deep established him in the science fiction and fantasy field.  His most recent tale is 2022’s Flint and Mirror:  A Novel of History and Magic.

 

Crowley’s best-known book is Little, Big, winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.  The book melds the story of a New York family with a “fairy world” community over a hundred-year period and is a terrific study in family dynamics and compassion.  Critics have lauded it as “The best fantasy book ever” and “The closest achievement we have to the Alice stories of Lewis Carroll.” 

 

Recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, Crowley also is a longtime creative writing teacher at Yale and has taught annually at the Clarion West Writers' Workshop in Seattle for three decades.

 

“I've always had a compassion for characters in novels,” Crowley noted.   “They are, whatever they might think, living in a world that has a shape they don't know and can't finally alter.”