Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Diane Hammond is the author of critically acclaimed novels including Going to Bend and Homesick Creek. A Bend resident, she is the recipient of an Oregon Arts Commission literary fellowship and served as a spokesperson for the Free Willy Keiko Foundation and the Oregon Coast Aquarium.
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Going to Bend is your first novel. Is there a story behind your
writing it?
I think of the first half of this book as my graduate school
thesis. I wrote it in 1994 and 1995, agonizing over its technical aspects
and devices as well as its characters and story line. Craft issues have
always loomed large for me. Are the character voices clear enough,
consistent enough, revealing enough? How much of the story should I stage,
and how much can I just allude to in internal monologues? Is it moving along
smoothly? Experienced writers make hundreds of critical decisions by
instinct, but most less-experienced writers don’t have that luxury. It can
be exhausting. In fact, by the exact midway point in the book, I was so worn
out from the technical choices and decisions I was making that I was losing
my way in the story. This, plus the fact that I had a young child, multiple
sclerosis, and a demanding day job, convinced me to put the manuscript down.
In fact, I didn’t look at it again until 2001, when I was uninspired by
whatever work was at hand and instead hauled out the manuscript. By then,
thanks to my appallingly bad memory, I had forgotten more about ...
Maeve Binchy was born in a small village outside Dublin. She spent her childhood in Dalkey, an experience she draws on today when creating the rural villages usually at the heart of her novels. After receiving her B... (more)
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Going To Bend
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In her own words: "I was born and raised in suburban Boston. My mother's death, when I was eight, was the defining event of a childhood that was otherwise ordinary. I took piano lessons and flute lessons. I took ballroom... (more)
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Going To Bend
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