Posted inEditor's Pick

Taking the Slow Road: An Interview with Author Katherine Heiny

Sari Botton | Longreads | February 3, 2015 | 3,683 words

She published a short story in The New Yorker in 1992, then seemed to all but disappear. How author Katherine Heiny took her sweet time on the path toward publishing her new story collection.

Posted inBooks, Fiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story

Taking the Slow Road: An Interview with Author Katherine Heiny

She published a short story in The New Yorker in 1992, then seemed to all but disappear. How author Katherine Heiny took her sweet time on the path toward publishing her new story collection.
Photo by Leila Barbaro

Sari Botton | Longreads | February 2015 | 14 minutes (3,683 words)

Ed. note: Katherine Heiny will be in conversation with Sari Botton at McNally Jackson in New York on Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 7 p.m.

* * *

In the fall of 1992, I found myself very much affected by “How to Give the Wrong Impression,” a short story in the September 21 issue of The New Yorker about a twentysomething psych grad student who’s trying hard to seem satisfied keeping things platonic between her and her handsome roommate.

To begin with, I had a lot in common with the protagonist, more than I’d have wanted to admit at the time. I was in my twenties, too—27 to be exact—newly divorced from the second person I’d ever so much as dated, and most importantly, I was very busy trying to seem satisfied keeping things platonic with a rakish “friend.” I didn’t just recognize that young woman, I was her at that moment in my life.

Continue reading “Taking the Slow Road: An Interview with Author Katherine Heiny”