DYLAN LANDIS: I had been a newspaper reporter and then a freelance magazine writer. And a friend who was also in magazine land told me there was a fiction workshop I had to take. And I decided to trust her. It was given by Madeleine L'Engle who wrote a book that a lot of people my age grew up on called A Wrinkle in Time. And Madeleine led this once a year workshop, 20 people around a huge conference table, just unbelievably long in a Episcopal convent.
And she told on the first session, she told the story of the Good Samaritan, in which a man was lying on the road, beaten by robbers, and a Samaritan stops and helps him. He's the third person to come along, but the first to help him. And she said some scholars believe that the man lying on the road is actually Jesus, and some scholars believe that the Samaritan is actually Jesus. If you can understand that both of those things can be simultaneously true, you can write fiction, and my head exploded.
And I thought my life is changing right now. I have to write fiction. And she also said that night, nonfiction is about what is true, but fiction is about truth. And I went home and told my husband, I have to completely change the direction of my life. And I did. I was 40, I just want to add that.