“I’ve discovered that if you don’t give your guest something to react to, they don’t react. They simply say what they’ve been saying every time they’ve been interviewed. The last thing you want is to have people say to you what they’ve said to someone else.
[...]
I wouldn’t call what I ask questions; I consider them to be lengthy Rorschach blots in words, in language.
[...]
I often say that the writer’s face tells me what to ask. At the beginning of an interview, I try to look straight at the writer, to meet their eye and not break the gaze. I don’t turn it into a game—it’s not who blinks first—it’s meant to be casual. An unbroken gaze leads to an unbroken sentence. As soon as someone blinks or looks away, you get shorter and shorter sentences. If they talk in a long sentence, it’s akin to a meditative state or a state like dreaming or thinking to oneself. I want them to be there.
[...]
Another place where the conventional view of broadcast journalism and interviewing is incorrect, at least for me. With the kind of people I’m speaking to, silence is part of the vocabulary. And almost inevitably, the vocal delivery of a joke or something humorous is about the beauty of a well-placed pause before the aspirated word. I leave in what’s called “dead air” in the technical world of radio. Now that we’re digital, you’d be amazed how the minutest of pauses can be edited out of a sentence. And I don’t want them edited out. I really don’t, because part of the information that the listener is getting—especially the listener who knows the writer, who’s been thinking about or is excited about this writer—is how quickly the writer comes up with an answer to a question. We watch athletes as they pause and ready themselves, and writing is just another skill by someone who’s brought a form to perfection or their own version of perfection.
[...]
Start by doing it. It’s like walking a tightrope, and it should be. The more it’s like walking a tightrope, the more admirable it will be, and the more interesting it will be to your reader or listener. A steno pad prevents you from meeting a person’s eye. And it prevents someone from meeting your eye. Don’t use notes. There’s a conscious and unconscious response when someone sees that you’re speaking to him or her from memory and you trust yourself. You may never know when the answer is going to end or where he’s going to stop, or she’s going to stop, but believe in the politeness of letting someone speak uninterrupted and don’t interrupt. My advice to you: sit forward, listen with all your might, and don’t ever be thinking of your next question.”
–from “Interview with Michael Silverblatt” (host of Bookworm)
found in The Believer (June 2010)
