Draws on interviews the author has conducted for ABC Radio National’s literary program ‘Books and Writing. Joseph Heller reveals how marvellous he found his own writing; Gore Vidal is his acerbic best; Susan Sontag takes issue with being called a public intellectual; Joyce Carol Oates gives up on being a study in remoteness when she realises that Koval has read almost everything she has written; Les Murray drives through his New South Wales district and introduces his dead relatives; Judith Wright declares that there was no point to writing poetry after her beloved husband died; Edna O'Brien says that writing is a holy job; Ian McEwan praises the rational approach to life.