I have just watched an insightful archived interview: *The Writer in America Ross MacDonald*. KZfaq. Downloaded by Mark Slade. I could wish the film longer: MacDonald (Kenneth Millar 1915-1983) was said to be a gifted writing teacher, in as much as writing can be taught. Dorothea Brande and John Gardner were the go-to writing teachers. He was married to novelist Margaret Millar (1915-1994) who appeared briefly in the film. Penguin Crime in Britain published her novel The Soft Talkers (also titled as An Air That Kills) which I liked very much. My local bookshop has a good crime section: When lockdown ceases I must hunt down unread MacDonalds. And I have a notion to reread Cornell Woolrich aka William Irish and William Saroyan, an old favourite.

Correction. I wrote James Wright when I meant to write Richard Wright, author of Native Son. In one of his essays James Baldwin described Wright's many difficulties, not least the FBI's surveillance of him, when Wright was living in Paris. James Wright the American poet (1927-1980) would be worth seeing in an interview. The list of American poets I would like to see in conversation with an accomplished reader of poetry (I am trying to avoid the word critic) would be a long list. Again I would like to see these archived permanently on KZfaq. What you are doing is most worthwhile, Mr Friedman. I live in Scotland and have been reading American poetry, fiction and good non-fiction writing (the kind that appears in The Atlantic and The New Yorker) for 60 years.

You gave us an entertaining Evan Hunter/Ed McBain interview. So thanks for this film on Susan Minot who, like Evan Hunter, has a background in representational drawing. I have two hardback books by Susan: Monkeys and Evening. Now I must order her book of stories, Why I Don't Write. Incidental to this video, I think you would enjoy the series of KZfaq films on painters, sculptors, and installation artists, appearing under Tate Shots. I would enjoy watching any interviews you can track down with James Wright, William March, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, John O'Hara, James Gould Cozzens, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, J.F. Powers, Arthur Miller, William Inge, Irwin Shaw, Carson McCullers, Nelson Algren, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Flannery O'Connor, Bernard Malamud, James Purdy, Chester Himes, Jane Bowles, Paul Bowles, John Updike, Vance Bourjaily, Willie Morris, Mary McCarthy, JP Donleavy, Randall Jarrell, Christina Stead, Ross McDonald, George E Higgins, Jim Thompson, Anne Tyler, Janet Malcolm, Octavia E Butler, Louise Gluck, Allegra Goodman, Julie Hecht, Amy Hempel, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Tracy K Smith, Amanda Gorman etc. KZfaq has great potential for writers as well as painters, sculptors, composers etc. But I do not think writers and publishers are using it to its full potential. Publishers do not seem to wake up to the tremendous potential of the medium. The BBC in London could do much more to make televised interviews with writers available on KZfaq: There are some, but not nearly enough, which is why I am grateful to you. For instance, are there any interviews with William March who wrote a brilliant novel about the First World War, Company K (recently republished)? Are there any archival interviews with James Wright, author of Native Son? We can watch an intelligent interview with Paul Goodman by William F Buckley. Has anyone interviewed on film science fiction writers like Poul Anderson, Philip Jose Farmer, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, Frederik Pohl, Philip K Dick, Samuel R Delany, Robert A Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, William Gibson etc. I see I have thrown a lot of names here, but any recovery of archival interviews is a reason for celebration. These interviews with gifted men and women are a life-affirming diversion during Covid-19 lockdown. Thanks.