The Cardturner

Author Q&A

20 Writerly Questions with Louis Sachar


1. How would you summarize your new book in one sentence?
A seventeen year old boy helps his blind uncle to try to win a national championship at bridge, a game he doesn’t understand.
 
2. How long did it take you to write this book?
Two years.
 
3. How did you choose your characters’ names?
Arbitrarily. Sometimes I named them after streets.
 
4. How many drafts did you go through?
Eleven.
 
5. Who was the first person to read your manuscript?
My wife, Carla.
 
6. If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it?
Dustin Hoffman.
 
7.  What’s your favourite city in the world?
San Francisco.
 
8. Did you always want to be a writer?
Yes.
 
9. What was your very first story about? When did you write it?
I don’t remember.
         
10. What was your favourite book as a kid?
Yellow Eyes.
 
11. If you could be any character from any book, who would you be?
Kissing Kate Barlow.
 
12. If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be?
There isn’t. Writing a book isn’t about ideas, or plot, or even characters. You can’t think, “Oh, I wish I had thought of that.” It’s about the day to day struggle to get your ideas onto the page, in your own unique way, and that’s nothing you can wish for.
 
13. If you could talk to any writer living or dead who would it be, and what would you ask?
Kurt Vonnegut.  “Is death all you expected it to be?”
 
14. How do you organize your library?
I tend to keep my favorite books together, but there isn’t much organization to it.
 
15. What’s on your nightstand right now?
I’m currently in Montreal teaching a writing seminar, so none of my usual things are there. I met a Canadian Author named Monique Polak, and I’m reading her book, What World is Left, but it’s on my desk, not my nightstand.
 
16. Where is your favorite place to write?
In my office in my house.
 
17. Do you have any writing rituals?
I either jog or walk first thing in the morning, then I shower and eat breakfast, and then write. I never talk to anyone during breakfast.
 
18. When do you write best, morning or night?
Morning.
 
19. What is the best gift someone could give a writer?
Moral support.
 
20. What is the best advice someone could give a writer?
Don’t talk about a book, until you have finished writing it, even if it takes ten years. Keep it secret. Otherwise you will lose the energy needed to write it.