Primary Sources: People - American Women: Didion, Joan

"Presents an interview with author Joan Didion. When asked about writing teachers, she said that Mark Schorer helped influence her writing at Berkeley University. She says her writing style changes depending on whether she is writing nonfiction or fiction. She said that when she began writing in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were not very many woman writers to be compared with."

Presents an interview with writer Joan Didion regarding the art of writing nonfiction. She describes fiction writing as a fraught business while nonfiction as more like a sculpture. After her husband's death, she began writing a few lines each day; wherein she realized that she was trying to structure a book.

"NPR's coverage of Joan Didion, who died Thursday at age 87, dates back to 1977, where she described what she meant when she wrote "writers are always selling somebody out" in the introduction of her 1968 book Slouching Towards Bethlehem."