Rory asked Viet Thanh Nguyen:

Your book reminded me why I liked books, at a time of great drought of the soul. You write with passion about the driest topics, and your stories are impossible not to relate to on a human as well as an intellectual level. As an aspiring and practicing writer; if I could one day harness the capacity to put my raw thoughts to paper as powerfully and elegantly as you do, I'll call my life well-lived. When did you start?

Viet Thanh Nguyen I wrote my first "book" in the third grade, and wrote intermittently through college and graduate school. I started writing (fiction) more regularly in my late twenties and very seriously in my early thirties. Writing is a life-long practice and vocation, and it's never too late to start.

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