Michael Cunningham on the Question of Scale in Writing

Michael Cunningham on the Question of Scale in Writing

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. I don’t work on an epic scale, though my ambitions run more to epic proportions than I like to admit. ​ It’s a question of focus. I don’t really see on an epic scale, not in the way of Tolstoy and Morrison and García Márquez. ​ I’m wired differently. I see the train before I see the continent it traverses. For that matter, I see the passengers before I see the train. I se…

Unsayable by Michael Cunningham review – The Hours author on the insecurities that powered his creative life

The American novelist and screenwriter’s memoir covers sex work, Virginia Woolf and Hollywood success As an eight-year-old in comfortable, solid, suburban California, Michael Cunningham felt compelled to make art before he quite understood what it was, or could do: a painting of souls ascending to heaven, for example, in which paradise resembled the Griffith Park…

Book review of Unsayable by Michael Cunningham

In his lovely, impressionistic memoir, Unsayable, Michael Cunningham walks the reader along his long and winding artistic path, reminding aspiring writers that even acclaimed novelists don’t spring up fully formed.