'The foundation for writing structure'

“I think of novels as houses. You live in them over the course of a long period, both as a reader and as a writer.” – Nicole Krauss

 

Born in New York City on Aug. 18, 1974 Krauss is best known for her novels Man Walks Into a Room and Forest Dark, although her short fiction also has been widely published in everything from The New Yorker to “Best American Short Stories.”  Her most recent collection is How To Be A Man, winner of the Wingate Literary Prize.

 

A writer since childhood, she said her first “opus” was a book of poems put down in a spiral notebook at age 5 or 6 “handsomely accompanied by crayon illustrations.” Krauss “officially” started writing – mostly poetry – in her teens.  After college - at Stanford University - she had her first novel published in 2001.  Two of her award-winning novels have been adapted into films and been translated into 35 languages.

Of her writing style, she noted, "I'm very interested in structure, how multiple stories are assembled in different ways; that is what memory does as well."