I didn’t like filtering the story through me, saying, ‘Reader, you’ll be safe with me. While it gets a little dangerous, it’ll be okay because, after all, you’re with me, because I’m a warm convivial voice. But let’s be entertained by this horrible stuff.’ I didn’t like that. Michael Winter Read Quote
I’ve grown up, luckily, with only a distant relationship to war and soldiering. Michael Winter Read Quote
You can’t go wrong with major life and death stories when it comes to a competition, so I thought I’d have a go at writing one. Michael Winter Read Quote
Through an arbitrary problem, I had arrived at a tenet of good writing: brevity wins. Michael Winter Read Quote
If you are having trouble with a story, it may not be an issue with the quality of the writing – there may just be too much of it. Michael Winter Read Quote
I approached writing a story for the CBC Literary Awards as a mercenary venture – $5,000 for one story, not bad. Now, how do you win it? Jurors are wading through skyscrapers of paper, looking for one story that stands out. Michael Winter Read Quote
How does the past ambush us? How can we be accurate about what happened, how can we be true to it? And can war be declared over? And can we ever evolve from the notion of war, of nations, of us versus them? Michael Winter Read Quote
Linda Svendsen’s ‘Marine Life’ was important. I was nearly 22. Larry Mathews discussed the book in a creative writing class. We examined her stories, figured out how they worked. Michael Winter Read Quote
Before Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, there was the same sort of talk of young men sacrificing their lives so that a country might grow – that somehow it had been a great nation-building success for Newfoundland. Michael Winter Read Quote
