Douglas Coupland is one of those writers. You know the kind. The voraciously readable, disarmingly prescient variety of author whose output is, to be cavalier, impressive if you’re into that kind of thing. With 13 novels, seven non-fictions, short story collections and a slew of other projects to his name, Coupland is also credited with popularising the now-ubiquitous term ‘Generation X’ via his selfsame first novel, and seems to be a pretty affable guy. He will soon appear in conversation at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, and though coy about notions of legacy, he is otherwise refreshingly direct.

“I’ve known people for 35 years and I don’t think I really know them,” Coupland admits. “If one of them would write fiction it would make my understanding of them so much easier. But they don’t. So how does anyone ever know anybody? And then you die.”

It’s an intriguing (if grim) response, suggesting that through the fabulations of friends we might best understand who they truly are. It also implies that to be understood – and be distinct – you must be damned secure in your craft. Much of Coupland’s writing is lauded for its immersion into a particular world; be it the Mojave Desert in Generation X, Silicon Valley for Microserfs, or a Vancouver high school for Hey Nostradamus! Developing an ear for detail, in other words, is crucial.

“Hyperspecificity to a time and place is important. If you’re a young writer, remember that. It doesn’t date your work; it turns it into a time capsule. An instantaneous way to write something people won’t even register, let alone remember, is to write it in a indeterminate present and place. People can sniff the scent of writers’ workshops from a few valleys over.”

It’s an ethos that has served him well, and has led to that coveted acclaim that seeps so irregularly between critics and the wider public. Of the accolades Coupland has received, the poignant, somewhat elegiac Hey Nostradamus! is held as one of his finest novels. Detailing the lives of four characters affected by a suburban high school shooting, its echoes of the Columbine massacre among tragically recurrent others (“Get used to them,” Coupland says of such frequent public shootings, “They’ll be going on for centuries”), it is also one of the books of which he is most proud.

With its focus on victims rather than mythologising the attackers, one might expect it required a great deal of emotional investment to conjure these characters and make their lives seem sincere. Yet surprisingly, this does not seem to be the case at all.

“No such thing. I don’t think it’s about victims even – it’s about how the belief systems of a family propagate themselves even when family members think they’re doing the opposite. How does that happen? It still baffles me now … [Still,] characters never leave you. After they’re born, they’re part of your Greek chorus forever. The book came out around the time of Gus Van Sant’s Elephant and because of that, the book was viewed as part of a cluster of Columbine-related artistic production rather than being a book on its own. That’s just how the media works. The script for the book was recently finished, and Peter Webber [Girl With A Pearl Earring] is attached to direct. I’m really happy about that.”

With a film en route, the legacy of the Hey Nostradamus! story is now firmly secured. Probing Coupland on the sense of his own testament, however, is a touch more oblique.

“That’s a French verb I learned two days ago,” he says. “Témoigner.”

Touché.

Douglas Coupland: Writing That Defines Modern Culture as part of Sydney Writers’ Festival 2015 is onSunday May 24 atRoslyn Packer Theatre (formerly Sydney Theatre).

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