SOURCE: Banks, Russell, Charles Johnson, Michael Ondaatje, E. Annie Proulx, Bob Shacochis, Robert Stone, Terry Tempest Williams, and Steve Paul. “On Hemingway and His Influence: Conversations with Writers.” The Hemingway Review 18, no. 2 (spring 1999): 115-32.

In the following article, Paul interviews several well-known and highly respected writers concerning Hemingway's influence on their own work and what they find most compelling about Hemingway.

Is it possible for an American writer, on the eve of the 21st century, to write outside the shadow of Ernest Hemingway?

Well, yes and no. For some the shadow receded long ago; for others it was never there. But for many American writers of the generations since Hemingway, the shadow dapples the landscape. It's there in fragments, in memory. It's ephemeral. Sometimes it looms large. And just as Hemingway can suggest different meanings to different readers, he speaks differently to each writer: He can teach one...