Collection Description

Larry McCaffery is an SDSU professor emeritus of English. In addition to teaching, McCaffery built a reputation as an important postmodern and contemporary American literary critic known for identifying influential and innovative writers. Over the course of thirty years, he and his wife, Sinda Gregory (a scholar in her own right), conducted numerous interviews with notable postmodern and contemporary American writers. In total there are 71 interviewees, including Mark Danielewski, Samuel Delany, Raymond Carver, Joanna Russ, Ursula LeGuin, Raymond Federman, and William Gibson.

McCaffery's unique interview process started with a recorded interview on tape. He then made a loose transcription of the recorded conversation, making changes and rearranging sections as he went. Both McCaffery and the interviewee heavily edited this transcript, which eventually resulted in the creation of a final, collaborative manuscript. Some original audio recordings are reproduced here, while others are only available in our offline archives. This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

McCaffery’s interviews were published in several books: Anything Can Happen: Interviews with Contemporary American Novelists (1983); Alive and Writing: Interviews with American Authors of the 1980s (1986); Across the Wounded Galaxies: Interviews with Contemporary American Science Fiction Authors (1990); and Some Other Frequency: Interviews with Innovative American Authors (1995).

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Interview with Ted Mooney, 1987
Sinda Gregory meets with Ted Mooney in his apartment in New York City. Mooney discusses how his parents were both writers and that influenced his choice of career. The place of his parents in politics, as his father worked for President Lyndon Johnson, is also discussed as well as its influence on Mooney’s eventual choice of career. Gregory discusses Mooney’s novel, Easy Travel to Other Planets, which she has taught in her classes. Discussion ranges to the way that technology has changed the way people interact with the world and to the way that people lose touch with feelings., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Ted Mooney, 1990
Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory interview Ted Mooney in his apartment in New York City. Discussion ranges primarily around Mooney’s style of writing as it applied to his two novels, Easy Travel to Other Planets and Traffic and Laughter. The conversation includes Mooney’s work habits, the research into the novels, the style of narration and his views on fiction writing in general. Mooney also mentions the influence that art has had on his writing through his work as an editor at the magazine Art in America. The interview concludes with a lengthy discussion on the place of television in modern society and Mooney’s use of it in his own fiction. An edited version of this interview appears at http://www.altx.com/int2/ted.mooney.html., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Thomas McGuane
Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory interview Thomas McGuane in his home in Livingston, Montana. The interview begins with a discussion of writers that McGuane admires. The conversation then moves on to McGuane’s personal life and how it had been affecting his writing, specifically his autobiographical novel Panama. McGuane describes his history as a “comic novelist.” There is a discussion of the political and personal ideas explored in McGuane’s novels. McGuane talks about how he uses dialogue as the primary aspect of his writing. McGuane and McCaffery discuss the state of international fiction. There is a discussion of a comparison between McGuane’s work and Hemingway’s work. McGuane explains his difficulty in trying to teach writing. McGuane discusses his writing style and habits. McGuane answers questions about his work as a screenwriter. The interview ends with a discussion of current fiction. McGuane suggests that McCaffery interview Edmund White, mentioning that White would be in Paris for the following year which would lead to an interview in May of 1984. An edited version of this interview appears on pages 196 to 221 of Alive and Writing: Interviews with American Authors of the 1980s, ed. Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory, University of Illinois Press, 1987., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Tim O'Brien
Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Larry McCaffery interviews Tim O’Brien in O’Brien’s Cambridge apartment. O’Brien explains his writing in light of his experiences in the Vietnam War, including the idea of whether he is a “Vietnam writer” and his decision to go to Vietnam and not desert from the army. They discuss in depth O’Brien’s novel Going After Cacciato and how it relates to other works on the war. O’Brien goes in-depth into his writing habits, including the starting point for his books (“I try to dramatize an idea”). O’Brien expounds on his ideas about experimentalism in fiction. There is a long discussion about a possible influence from Hemingway upon O’Brien’s writing. O’Brien discusses the ideas he uses in his novel Northern Lights while also discussing what he sees as the book’s flaws. An edited version of this interview appears on pages 262 to 278 of Anything Can Happen: Interviews with Contemporary American Novelists, ed. Tom LeClair and Larry McCaffery, University of Illinois Press, 1983., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Tom Disch, 1986
Without introduction, McCaffery notes Disch’s love of opera. Disch names Wagner and says the poetry, narrative and singing help produce the “largest aesthetic charge.” He compares the group effort of opera to the way that elements of a story work together, and McCaffery comments that readers may not understand and appreciate the conventions and “artifices” of science fiction, Disch’s main genre. Disch says that no one has ever studied what happens in peoples’ minds as they read and write, saying, “The best writers are the ones whose mental canvas is the most extensive and . . . best edited.” Disch discusses taste in painting and allusions, and the expansion of technology. McCaffery asks about Disch’s poetry. Disch discusses this and his book The Roaches. They agree that Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis is also comic. About novels, Disch says, “How much can you bring to bear on a metaphor? That is the art of writing a novel,” adding, “it’s all a matter of load-bearing capacity.” They discuss Catholicism and are talking about where to live as the tape ends. These subjects continue on side 2. Disch discusses the book The Sand Pebbles, then American anti-intellectualism. They talk about Disch’s use of music, American education, and Disch’s book Torturing Mr. Amberwell. McCaffery talks about interviewing Raymond Carver, and Disch discusses how circumstances of life affect writing. McCaffery asks why Disch wrote science fiction, and Disch says he “had the knack” and he could “earn a living at” writing in this genre. Disch speaks of wanting “to do something surprising” rather than meeting readers’ expectations. ”Surprise is what you remember,” Disch says, and “violating expectations” requires strategy., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Tom Disch, 1988
McCaffery asks how Disch got involved with “Amnesia” (later called a video game or text adventure). Disch says “It is an art form in itself." He mentions Douglas Adams’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy." McCaffery asks if artists will be moving into using computers, and Disch says there is not enough software yet but speaks about what has “become possible through computer graphics.” McCaffery talks about “New Wave” science fiction, and Disch discusses the culture that engendered pessimism and how new technologies have brought new possibilities, such as computers that are “person to person” rather than “system to system,” adding, “We haven’t seen the downside of the computer technology yet.” They discuss modern writers. Next, McCaffery asks, “Does the phrase “postmodernism” mean anything to you?” and Disch answers “No, it’s simply what’s happening now." They discuss science fiction and editing the interviews for McCaffery’s book, Across the Wounded Galaxies. On the next tape, McCaffery talks about imagination and such legends as that of Faust. Disch mentions the book on which he is working at the time, The M.D.: A Horror Story, on the Faust theme. They discuss Disch’s book Camp Concentration, and Disch considers mental “breakdowns” that were once used to describe why people left “intolerable situations.” McCaffery asks about psychology, Freud, and psychotherapy. Disch discusses the social function of psychotherapy in an industrial society. They consider identity and mention Disch’s short story “Understanding Human Behavior.” They continue into a discussion of various authors, with McCaffery asking about Disch’s “affinity” for Thomas Mann. They talk about Disch’s On Wings of Song. On the second side of tape 3, Disch says he uses “gay characters” when appropriate and mentions his projected novel The Pressure of Time. They discuss the social opprobrium of being gay. Disch says his partner Charles Naylor is his “best reader,” and a writer., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Tom Robbins
Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory interview Tom Robbins at his home in La Conner, Washington. The interview begins with a discussion of why Robbins lives in such a small, secluded town which leads into a description of Robbins’ background. Robbins expounds on the influence of art and religion on his writing. Robbins discusses the background to writing his first novel, Another Roadside Attraction. The discussion turns to the use of humor in literature and the way it is not respected by critics. In the final half hour, now at a restaurant and mostly not reflected in the published version of the interview, the three discuss travelling, potential film adaptations of Robbins’ novels and local politics. An edited version of this interview appears on pages 222-239 of Alive and Writing: Interviews with American Authors of the 1980s, ed. Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory, University of Illinois Press, 1987., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin
Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory meet with Ursula K. Le Guin in Le Guin’s house in Portland. The conversation begins with a discussion of Le Guin’s parents and their influence of her becoming a writer. Le Guin discusses her influences and early work before she was published. Le Guin notes that she did not read much science fiction when young in spite of now being known primarily as a science fiction writer. Much of the discussion centers around two of Le Guin’s novels: The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. A considerable portion of the discussion hinges on the work and recent death of Philip K. Dick. An edited version of the interview appears on pages 175 to 195 of Alive and Writing: Interviews with American Authors of the 1980s, ed. Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory, University of Illinois Press, 1987., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with William Eastlake
Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory interview William Eastlake. Eastlake begins by talking about screenwriting as a profession. Eastlake explains how he came to write about the American West. Eastlake explains his despair of a lack of geniuses in the current state of writing and the large amount of “terrible writing”, attributing it to the teaching of writing in universities. Eastlake explains how he came to write about Native Americans in his fiction and talks about his experiences with Native Americans. Eastlake talks about his experiences in World War II and his reaction to various novels about war. Eastlake proclaims that prose writers are the best poets in 20th Century American literature. An edited version of this interview appeared as "An Interview with William Eastlake," South Shore: An International Review of the Arts, 1 (Fall 1977), 41-65., Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory interview William Eastlake. Eastlake begins by talking about screenwriting as a profession. Eastlake explains how he came to write about the American West. Eastlake explains his despair of a lack of geniuses in the current state of writing and the large amount of “terrible writing”, attributing it to the teaching of writing in universities. Eastlake explains how he came to write about Native Americans in his fiction and talks about his experiences with Native Americans. Eastlake talks about his experiences in World War II and his reaction to various novels about war. Eastlake proclaims that prose writers are the best poets in 20th Century American literature. An edited version of this interview appeared as "An Interview with William Eastlake," South Shore: An International Review of the Arts, 1 (Fall 1977), 41-65., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with William Gibson
The interviewer is not named until the end, when both the journal and the name “Elliott” are mentioned. It begins with Gibson speaking about the label cyberpunk, and they discuss the genre and the authors. Gibson talks about his first WorldCon in 1981 as “an adult SF writer,” on a panel with Sterling. Elliott asks whether the novel Difference Engine is the beginning of a new tack, and Gibson says that cyberspace is not only his word (introduced to fiction by him) but also his interest. Gibson says he is not a “techie,” and had no special knowledge, no hands-on experience when he wrote about computers. He listened to “hackerspeak” as “a kind of found poetry” and was not as interested in “what it actually meant,” producing embarrassment such as when a character sends out for an unneeded modem. They talk about his relationship with Takayuki Tatsumi and the popular Japanese cultural view of blood types. “The things that appall and delight me are almost always in the present.” His initial technique was to describe the world around him and present it as the future, and he gets depressed when extrapolating the present to the future. Elliott asks about the Vietnam War, and Gibson says he was in Barcelona for the first two weeks and remembers “nonstop” demonstrations. Gibson says that the rest of the world does “not necessarily think of us as good guys.” He has “not lived in the United States for 20 years,” listening to opinions of outsiders.They are interrupted more than once by people, some of whom use the words “Tree of Life Room.” At the end of this tape Gibson says that the interviewer was “Elliott for Science Fiction Review in the Tree of Life Room of the Masonic Temple.”, San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
Without an introduction an interviewer asks Bruce Sterling and William Gibson about their book Difference Engine, and Gibson says that he and Sterling began discussing the subject matter before they decided to do a book. Gibson describes the experience of seeing a portion of a reconstructed Babbage machine in London. They discuss the details of the process of writing and planning. They discuss the relationship of the reader to the text in Difference Engine. Asked if it is easier “to invent the future or reinvent the past,” Sterling found it more difficult, Gibson found it easier. They discuss the historical language they researched and used. They reused characters from Disraeli’s novels, but some characters are based on real people, like Mori Arinori. Gibson discusses Virtual Light and talks about his movie projects. He is interested in Hollywood culture, “which is as close to my imagined future than anything else I have ever seen.” On the next tape they say that they took their instruments for scanning the future and pointed them at the past instead. The cyberpunk label, Sterling says, was applied by journalists, and he was worried that the label would mean that what they were doing was dead. The interviewer asks where they see “science fiction going.” Gibson says “there’s a bit more room now” for “people to do the oddball, off-the-wall stuff that I enjoy.” Sterling says he “read a lot of trash sci-fi when I was a kid." Sterling discusses Babbage and his history. They think they started talking about Babbage in 1983. They kept urging each other to write the book, but finally realized “it was a job” for two people. “I don’t think we could have done this without word processors,” says Sterling, who explains how they sent floppy disks back and forth. The interviewer asks if they are comfortable with the cyberpunk label, and Sterling says it does not slow them down. Asked why neither “has felt the urge” to write a “realistic article,” Gibson says he would have to use the popular “toolkit,” and he is not comfortable with that, and Sterling says his next book will be nonfiction (The Hacker Crackdown). Asked what science fiction writers they read, Gibson answers Burroughs, Ballard, Thomas Pynchon, and James Branch Cabell. They point out that they did not use the usual fictional devices, such as a conventional plot, in Difference Engine. They have “no immediate plans” to work together again; there will be no sequel to Difference Engine. They discuss sequels in science fiction, and digital sharecropping, and their friendship. They talk about their audience. Asked where the term “cyberpunk” came from, Sterling says that writer Bruce Bethke wrote a story called “Cyberpunk,” but Gardner Dozois popularized the term., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, 1991
San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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