Jim asked Andy Davidson:

Is it possible, or even realistic, to separate the author from the person(al)?

Andy Davidson Great question. From the writer's perspective, maybe not. Almost everything I write, in some way, comes from the personal, some aspect of who I am. From the reader's perspective, I think you can make the separation, though with some authors it's probably easier than others. In poetry, we assume that the speaker and the writer are not the same; whether it's true or not, it's a good-faith way to approach a piece of literature, I think -- a way of saying it doesn't HAVE to be about the writer or the writer's perspective; rather, it can be about the character's.

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