To simply call E.L. Doctorow a historical fiction writer, his fans and critics say, is selling him short.

The author, who died this week at age 84, had a special way of blending fact and fiction, weaving unusual characters and unconventional storylines into familiar places, from the battlefields of the Civil War to New York’s World’s Fair.

“I think of myself really as a national novelist, as an American novelist writing about my country,” he told NPR in 2014.

Put another way, by The New York Times: He “was one of contemporary fiction’s most restless experimenters.”

It’s that style that made him a frequent guest on this program and many others during a career that included 12 novels, four collections of short fiction, a play and countless letters and essays. Two of his most famous books — “Ragtime” and “Billy Bathgate” — became movies.

This week, we’re revisiting one of our favorite interviews with the author: A 2009 conversation on “Homer and Langley,” a novel inspired by the true story of New York City’s most famous pack rats: The Collyer Brothers.

Some of the highlights:
 

On process

 

Listen: “When I write I never start with a plan or an outline.”

“When I write a book I never start with a plan or an outline. You put yourself in a position of writing to find out what you’re writing and you make discoveries as you go along. And the book begins to tell you things and give you gifts, and one line generates another.”
 

On happiness in writing

 

Listen: “I wouldn’t use that word for the general state of mind that you’re in. You’re really out of yourself.”

 

  “It’s not a matter of happiness. I mean … on a good day, you’re really transported by what you’re doing, you have no sense of time passing, you’re living in the sentences. On bad days, you’re discovering that the good day previously turned out to not be that good after all as you read what you’ve done. And if you can get 500 words you don’t throw out the next day, I suppose that is a degree of happiness but I wouldn’t use that word for the general state of mind that you’re in. You’re really out of yourself.”
 

On the difference between historical fiction and biography

 

Listen: “When a writer uses historical characters, it’s equivalent to portraiture.”

 

“As long as a book is announced as fiction and it’s clearly proposed as fiction, then the reader goes into another mode of response and understands, as you would if you were to understand that a portrait painted by a painter is not the living person who has modeled for the portrait. So when a writer uses historical characters, it’s equivalent to portraiture and represents the views of the writer.”
 

On what he reads

 

Listen: “When I’m writing fiction, I don’t read fiction. I read anything but.”

 

“I usually like to read books on science and history …. when I’m writing fiction, I don’t read fiction. I read anything but. …[It’s] a sense of distraction.”
 

On advice for writing

 

Listen: “You can only see as far as your headlights but you can make the whole trip that way.”

 

“You can only see as far as your headlights but you can make the whole trip that way. That is exactly the state of writing a novel.”
 

Want more E.L. Doctorow?

 
Listen to our full hour on “Homer and Langley” or take a trip back through one of our other interviews:
 

• E.L. Doctorow: “Andrew’s Brain” (Jan. 21, 2014)
• Readers’ Review: “The March” By E.L. Doctorow (Feb. 27, 2013)
• E.L. Doctorow: “Homer and Langley” (Random House) (Sep 24, 2009)
• E.L. Doctorow: “The March” (Random House) (Oct. 3, 2005)
• E.L. Doctorow: “Sweet Land Stories” (Random House) (May 24, 2004)
• E.L. Doctorow: “City of God” (Random House) (Mar. 16, 2000)