August 28, 2009
Washington, DC
“A place for soulful conversation” by ktylerconk from Flickr
Playwright Edward Albee met Carson McCullers in the early 1960s. They became life-long friends, and Albee adapted McCullers’s The Ballad of the Sad Cafe for the stage. From an interview with the NEA, Albee talks about what he and McCullers discussed during their regular visits.
Well, you know, writers don’t sit around talking about their craft very much. They don’t sit around talking about great writers of the past and our own work, and each other’s. Most writers sit around and talk about food, money, sex, and politics, you know, the way everybody else does. So, we didn’t talk about craft much. If I read something of hers that I liked, I’d tell her, and we’d talk about it a little bit but [Carson] didn’t want to sit around and be bored and boring either.
Hear more from Albee and others on Carson McCullers and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter on The Big Read audio guide.