SR: Many of your short stories have been published outside of Delicate Edible Birds including The Atlantic, Ploughshares, and The New Yorker. As soon as you read the book, it became yours-it’s no longer mine-and your interpretation is more valid than mine is. LG: I could tell you, but that would take all the fun out of your sussing it out for yourself. What is the relationship between the surfacing and the arrival? SR: In The Monsters of Templeton, a lake monster named Glimmey surfaces when Willie arrives. I thought it was a poignant reflection on both the creation of self and literary creation, and I filched his idea and applied it to my own book.

I loved how playfully he fictionalized our mutual hometown, how he turned his own father, William Cooper, into Marmaduke Temple, and in the process bowdlerized some unsavory aspects of his father’s personality. LG: Cooper’s Templeton is my Templeton: his is just set a few centuries earlier than mine. How did you build on or reimagine Cooper’s Templeton to create your Templeton?

SR: James Fenimore Cooper sets The Pioneers in a fictionalized town called Templeton, which is modeled after Cooperstown. And the book was born out of homesickness and a desire to create a loving, warm world around me. I was living in California, in a sad job, with no real friends around me, and was so lonely that all I wanted to do was spend all day in Cooperstown, a place I love deeply. I’d failed three times before my first published book to find a topic that was dear enough to me that I would do the work and spend the time that’s necessary to get to the end of a final draft. Lauren Groff: By the time I started Monsters, I’d discovered (through my own abject failure at writing a few novels) that the most important element of writing is the selection of the subject matter. Superstition Review: What inspired you to write a love story to your hometown of Cooperstown, New York? How did T he Monsters of Templeton accomplish that goal for you? Lauren’s books are thoroughly entertaining and possess inspiring, emotional honesty.” She discusses writing a love story to her hometown, fairy tales, and the art of storytelling in this interview. She said of the process, “Prepping for the interview was such an exciting experience because I knew I was going to have a conversation with the author of the New York Times Bestseller I was currently reading and enjoying. This interview was conducted via email by Interview Editor Monica Petersen. 'You Can't Write from the Inside,' an Interview with Lauren Groff

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