Autobiography of Blue

How do you view Richard Yates in terms of its seemingly autobiographical elements?

I view Richard Yates as something created to have a certain effect, and I wrote and edited it in service of that, using anything, ideally, as a means, regardless of whether it “really happened,” if certain people would think certain things about me, if it was “original” or not, if certain [anyone] would think [anything] about it, or [anything else]. Another way of saying that, I think, is that I try to focus on writing what I want to read. I try to focus on having the only influence on what and how I write be “what book/story/poem/essay with exactly what characteristics do I feel most strongly like I want to read right now?” ideally. I say “ideally” because I don’t view it as possible to be 100% uninfluenced by [a lot of things]. Also I think “what I want to read” changes, to some degree, every moment.

-TAO LIN

http://therumpus.net/2010/08/tao-lin-asks-and-answers-four-questions/