“My writing often comes to me that way–something that interests me in the real life world, something kind of political and thorny, something I don’t entirely totally know how I think about it, something I’m interested in exploring.” These words from short story writer and novelist Claire Boyles are at the heart of this episode on the relationship between fiction and real life. How might having personal experience in a certain arena both help and hinder our ability to use it as material for fiction? How can characters drive the way opinions are explored in a book? How do we create more compelling characters? What must be let go as we create a fictional realm? How can fiction help us explore “thorny” political themes? And how might our past lives help us in practical ways as we move forward in our creative lives?
Claire Boyles (she/her) is a writer and former farmer. Her debut novel, Appraisals, is forthcoming in August 2026. A 2022 Whiting Award winner in fiction, she is the author of Site Fidelity, which won the High Plains Book Award and was longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award, the Colorado Book Award, and the Reading the West Award. Her nonfiction has appeared in Sierra Magazine and Virginia Quarterly Review, among other journals, and she is a screenwriter with multiple credits on the Hallmark Channel. She splits time between Loveland, Colorado and Ames, Iowa, where she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and the Environment at Iowa State University.
Claire will be a speaker at the Grand Mesa Writer’s Symposium in Cedaredge on September 12. Details here: https://www.grandmesawriters.org/schedule
