Edmund Fuller, Matthew Hodgson, Lee Smith, and James West converse about creative writing programs, the continuation of America’s literary inheritance, and the ways apprentice writers, editors, publishers, and reviewers achieve professional status.
At the time of this interview, Fuller, the author of many fiction, nonfiction, and textbooks, was chief book critic for the Wall Street Journal. Hodgson was director of the University of North Carolina Press. Smith, the author of Black Mountain Breakdown and Cakewalk, was professor of English at North Carolina State University. West was a Fellow at the National Humanities Center (1981-82) and professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic University.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond.
