Lydia Davis in The Believer

I read a terrific Lydia Davis interview in The Believer. Her writing, which is so purposeful and unique, oppressively so, makes it very clear that she has to be a purposeful and unique thinker, which she is. She talks about the difference between stories and poems, a kind of obvious question given how short and penetrating her stories are. She talks about stories having to be more elastic, and containing some element of narrative, no matter how thin or elusive, how intimate or coded.

She mentions a number of writers who I'm now more curious about, several of whom I've never heard of: Edson, Peter Altenberg, Francis Ponge (who I love), Rae Armantrout...