Margaret Atwood, Joan Didion, Raymond Chandler, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Ellroy, Barbara Kingsolver, Joyce Carol Oates, Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway.
2.Who has had a major influence on your writing?
Lord knows, given all things that creep into the subconscious. But definitely, Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, and Oates.
3.Can you name at least one book that you never finished?
"Perfume." I was down to the last 15 pages and I lost the book and somehow never managed to pick up another copy.
4.What word or words do you always have trouble spelling?
Weirdly, alcohol is one of them. I'm always tempted to put an extra "h" after the "c".
6.Which of your characters would you most like to be and why?
I think Ed, mainly because he was the most fun to write and I would like his ability to be able to sneak around virtually unseen.
7.Which author would you invite to dinner?
Agatha Christie.
8.Where do you write?
I have mini-offices all over my flat -- the kitchen table, the dining room table, the couch, and an actual desk, although that is probably used least.
9.When do you write?
When I'm being productive, I write between 11 am and 4 pm. When unproductive, I mainly think about how I really, really have to write.
10.What makes you happy?
Swimming in the ocean off Martha's Vineyard; singing to my dog, Bob; writing a decent sentence; and meeting someone new who is wildly interesting.
11.What do you most fear?
Death. Failure. In that order.
12.What is your favorite vice?
A nice drink and a cigarette.
13.What is the quality you most like in yourself?
My curiosity.
14.What are the qualities you most like in your friends?
Their wit.
15.Would you be lying if you said your works were not autobiographical?
Not really. Being a human, anything I write is going to be about the human experience, so in that sense it will always be autobiographical, but it's empathy with others that allows us to stretch our imagination to people and situations we never have and probably never will experience ourselves.
16.What part of your personality do you detest?
My repetitiveness.
17.What is your favorite adjective?
It changes all the time. Right now, "revolting" is big with me.
18.What is your favorite book?
There are really too many to name, but a sampling would always include: “The Long Goodbye” by Raymond Chandler; “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway; “Tender Is the Night” by F. Scott Fitzgerald; “The Blind Assassin” by Margaret Atwood; “The White Album” by Joan Didion; “Dombey and Son” by Charles Dickens; and “The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales.”
19.What book would you read three times?
Two books that stand out in my mind that I actually have read at least three times are "David Copperfield" by Dickens and "Tender Is the Night" by Fitzgerald.
20.To whom would you award the Nobel Prize for Literature and why?
Margaret Atwood for her amazing contribution to contemporary literature and for basically being the smartest woman in the world.
