SOURCE: Busch, Frederick, and Charlotte Zoë Walker. “Practitioner of a Dangerous Profession: A Conversation with Frederick Busch.” Poets & Writers 27, no. 3 (May-June 1999): 33-7.

In the following interview, conducted in March 1999, Busch discusses Letters to a Fiction Writer and The Night Inspector, and ruminates about the short-story genre.

Frederick Busch is one of our most distinguished and accomplished fiction writers. Of his 23 published books, 19 are fiction. His 4 nonfiction works are all related to his passionate engagement with the craft of writing. He has been awarded the PEN/Malamud award for achievement in short fiction, has won the National Jewish Book Award, and has been awarded National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim fellowships. His novel Girls (Fawcett, 1998) was selected as a New York Times Book Review notable book. He has been acting director of the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, and is Edgar Fairchild Professor of Literature at...