Memoirist Sue William Silverman: "It is voice, then, in all its manifestations, that examines multiple and mysterious facets of a persona: the real 'you' deepened into a character."More @ creativenonfiction.org
“In the past thirteen years since my novel has been published, I have talked to thousands of women who have been sexually abused… I’m not a social worker but an artist. I have took, and will continue to take, the stories of women I have listened to and turn them into fiction.”More at UWM.
"[Ralph]Ellison lived in the midst of his own success and sat down to write with, one imagines, something like the weight of the literary world on his shoulders." More @ Salt Lake Tribune.
Ras @ 317am.net offers some thoughts on the idea of "idea" and theme in fiction. Parts One & Two.
"Most of us do think of character, plot, point of view, voice, and setting before we think of ideas when beginning to work on a story. [...] But there is something about ideas that seems alien to the unspoken assumptions of realism that underlie the mainstream of contemporary fiction."