She may be better known as the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the novel “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” but Jennifer Egan also loves journalism.

“You get to be a busybody (and) a nosy person,” she told The Bulletin. “And not only are you not punished for it, you’re actually paid for it. It’s the best game in town!”

Egan plans to explore the intersection between fiction and journalism when she speaks Thursday at Bend High School. The talk, “Novelist as Journalist/Journalist as Novelist,” is part of the Deschutes Public Library system’s continuing “Author! Author!” literary series (see “If you go”).

Egan has given the talk before, but its specifics are always evolving, she says. “I always try to start a bit fresh, and also try to learn from prior experience.”

Her journalism appears regularly in the New York Times Magazine and has covered such topics as bipolar disorder and sperm donors. “It’s hard to really imagine being a fiction writer without journalism at this point,” she said. “I would have had a much less interesting life to draw on if it weren’t for the experiences I had as a journalist.

“The way I go about the two is extremely different. As a journalist … my job is to synthesize reality and try to digest a lot of fact and knowledge into a form that’s readable to the public, but as a fiction writer I’m trying to create an alternative reality. I don’t write from my own life, or I don’t write about people I know. I’m really making it up, so the two are extremely different.”

Asked if she has a preference between fiction and journalism, Egan said fiction writing was her first discipline and “feels more bound up with who I am … but I would hate to give the journalism up,” she said. “I find them to be a fantastic combination.”

She’s surprised that more writers don’t practice both.

“It’s an old tradition, to do both. If you look at American writers like Hemingway, writers coming out of war reporting or other kinds of journalism, it was almost kind of a standard route, at one point,” she said.

The problem, if there is one, is that our culture tends to produce more specialists, Egan believes. “It’s a shame, because at least for me, the two work very symbiotically,” she said.

Egan is the author of several books, including “The Keep” (2006), but she’s best known for her 2010 novel “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” rendered in a series of linked stories and shifting perspectives. The Pulitzer committee called it “an inventive investigation of growing up and growing old in the digital age, displaying a big-hearted curiosity about cultural change at warp speed.”

“It’s not your standard, centrally oriented narrative; it’s much more fractured,” Egan said. “I knew it would be off-putting to people.

“Some people feel when they read it that they’re missing something or they’re not having an experience they should be having. That makes them feel anxious, as if they can’t enjoy it. My job, I feel, is to say please don’t worry about any of that. Get what you can, and enjoy it,” she said.

“One of the things I really love about visiting places and talking to readers and having a chance to talk about the book is that it gives me a chance to create a bridge for people who might find it off-putting.”

What does she want readers to take away from the book?

“Pleasure. That’s what it’s about. This is entertainment, after all,” she said.

Egan, who recently told the New York Times her next book is still a couple of years away, may also discuss what she’s working on now.

“If people ask, I’m always happy to,” she said. “My method is so blind and intuitive that it’s a little hard for me to speak authoritatively about what I’m doing, because I’m never totally sure what it’s going to end up being. I’m following a process and hoping it will lead somewhere good. I’m never totally sure.”

Egan used that method during the writing of “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” she said.

“People often seem interested and surprised to hear how haphazard it feels in the moment. And I think, sometimes, especially for people who are trying to write themselves, that can be reassuring. It’s not like we have all the answers, that’s for sure.”

Egan is the second author to visit Central Oregon as part of the Library Foundation’s series, which began with an appearance by “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” writer Mitch Albom.

Next up in the series is another Pulitzer Prize winner, Stephen Greenblatt, author of “The Swerve,” “Will in the World” and “How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare.” He’ll visit Bend at 7 p.m. March 7.

Erik Larson, author of “The Devil in the White City” and “In the Garden of Beasts,” will wrap up the series on June 20.

IF YOU GO

What: “Author! Author!” series presents Jennifer Egan

When: 7 p.m. Thursday

Where: Bend High School Auditorium, 230 N.E. Sixth St., Bend

Cost: $25, $35; $75 “Literary Lover” ticket includes author reception

Contact: bendticket.com