joe_haldeman @ 2011-12-11T11:42:00

 A website called WritingRaw asked me to answer a few questions . . . .
 
Please let us know who you are and how we might know you: 
I am Joe Haldeman. Have been writing full-time since 1969.  Thirty-some books and hundred or so shorter things; a couple of movies.  Best-known novel THE FOREVER WAR.  Currently writing WORK DONE FOR HIRE. 
 
Any news you would like to share concerning upcoming projects: 
 This month (December) the last book of my Marsbound trilogy, Earthbound, is coming out.  I’m past the halfway mark on my next novel, Work Done For Hire.
Thoughts concerning the current state of the literary world: 
 Seems pretty healthy.  When I started writing people were moaning about the death of the novel.  That was evidently premature.
Who is/are your favorite author/s and why? 
Hemingway and Fitzgerald are enduring fascinations.  Partly because they’re good quirky individual writers, and partly, I suppose, because I envy their life situations – being novelists when the world in general still thought that novels were important.
 
I don’t read as much current fiction as I should, perhaps.  I read contemporaries like Stephen King and Peter Straub while travelling; in science fiction, I read the “best of” collections, especially Dozois, every year, to see who’s sneaking up on me.
 
Have you written a book you love that you have not been able to publish? 
No.  I did write one that I didn’t particularly like that was not published.  But it was the novelization of a movie, and it was not published because the director and I had a difference of opinion.
 
 
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers? 
Definitely:  Thank you for buying books.  Without you, people like me  would have to go out and teach, or do something even less savory.
 
 
How do you feel about what WritingRaw.com and other literary sharing sites are attempting to do for new writers? 
I think it’s great that you are opening up a place on the web for people who still scratch out stuff on paper.  I never submitted things to “literary” magazines (who back in the day did not print things that could be identified as science fiction, fantasy, and horror); I’m glad you’re opening a good market willing to consider work by people without a pubishing record.
 
 
BONUS QUESTION: If you could suggest one book that everyone should read… what would that book be and why?“One” is hard.  A list of six would be easier.  But avoiding the obvious silliness of naming one of my own, I think I would recommend Boswell’s London journals.  A unique glimpse into a past that everyone who writes in English should visit; a riveting confessional from a young man unafraid of exposure; the delightful record of a country mouse becoming a city mouse, a meticulous and charming style of writing.