"All of the clichés that are heaped upon Midwesterners—that we’re simple, quiet, unassuming, honest,..."

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All of the clichés that are heaped upon Midwesterners—that we’re simple, quiet, unassuming, honest, generally good-natured, and so on—help create tension when a writer engages them in fiction, because a lot of readers (and many editors) on the coasts don’t expect those of us in ‘the flyover’ to have rich inner lives.

I think writers can use that mindset to our advantage as we unleash increasingly complex books that get after all manner of truth, not just about the Midwest, but about America, the world, the nature of humankind. Some of the most brutal books of the past few years have come from the Midwest. I’m thinking of Bonnie Jo Campbell’s American Salvage, Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff, and Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone, for starters. But some of the funniest books take place here, too. We can laugh at ourselves more effectively than people from either coast.

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- Me, in an interview for the Press 53 blog