SOURCE: “A Conversation with Hortense Calisher,” edited by Earl Ingersoll and Peter Marchant, in Southwest Review, Vol. 71, No. 2, Spring, 1986, pp. 186-93.

In the following interview, Calisher discusses her approach to writing, her prose style, the transition between writing short fiction and novels, and her interest in space travel and transportation.

With the publication of her first collection of stories, In Absence of Angels, in 1951, Hortense Calisher began a distinguished career that has seen the publication of a dozen and a half novels, collections of short stories and novellas, and an autobiography. Her most recent works are a collection of short fiction, Saratoga, Hot (1985), and a novel, The Bobby-Soxer (1986).

The conversation that follows is an updated transcription of a videotaped interview which took place at the State University of New York, College at Brockport, where Miss Calisher appeared as a guest of the Brockport Writers Forum. Speaking with her...