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The Yale Review | Changing My Mind

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WHEN I WAS STARTING OUT as a writer, I thought, not knowing any better, that I would be a writer of traditional short stories, though I didn’t put it quite that way. As my writing developed, I began departing from this form, further and further as the years have gone by, but I have revisited it now and then because it is a very solid and trustworthy form. One example of this return to a more traditional form is a story called “The Walk,” written about twelve years ago. “The Walk” is set in Oxford, England, during and after a literary conference on translation—this would be typical, very acceptable subject matter for a New Yorker short story, for instance. The main characters are a translator, modeled on myself, and a critic, who is a composite of a couple of people I know. Much of the action is taken from real events at the time of a real translation conference in Oxford, and some elements in it are fictional. (One of the turning points in my development as a writer was the realization

The Yale Review | Changing My Mind Essays Changing My Mind On sources, revision, and order Lydia Davis Photo: Theo Cote When I was starting out as a writer, I thought, not knowing any better, that I would be a writer of traditional short stories, though I didn’t put it quite that way. As my writing developed, I began departing from this form, further and further as the years have gone by, but I have revisited it now and then because it is a very solid and trustworthy form. One example of this return to a more traditional form is a story called “The Walk,” written about twelve years ago. “The W

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