Who are your favorite authors?

This is always a hard question for me to answer, as I tend to have favorite works rather than favorite authors. Rarely do I love a writer’s entire body of work, though I may love a few particular pieces, but if pressed, I’d say James Joyce, Jane Austen, George Bernard Shaw, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot.

Who has had a major influence on your writing?

Teachers have had the most direct influence, most significantly Sena Jeter Naslund and Sydney Lea. I also feel strongly influenced by Scott Russell Sanders. Though I never studied with him directly, a couple of brief meetings with him—spread across twenty years, supported in between times by reading and admiring his work for his clarity of expression— make him count for me as a significant influence.

What word or words do you always have trouble spelling?

It doesn’t happen when I write by hand, but I find it very funny (and perhaps a wee bit Freudian) that I consistently type the word writing as writhing!

Which of your characters would you want to be and why?

I’d like to be as gifted, as brave, as centered, as open, and as generous as my character Grace in The Sisters.

Which author would you invite to dinner?

First I’d have to resurrect him, but I’d love to invite George Bernard Shaw to dinner. Having done so, however, I suspect I’d regret the invitation because I’d know I’d never be able to keep up with his intellect, his wit, or his perfect turns of phrase.

What is the quality you most like in yourself?

I like that animals nearly always immediately trust me.

What are the qualities you most like in your friends?

Intelligence that they don’t ever take too seriously.

Would you be lying if you said your works were not autobiographical?

No, I wouldn’t be lying any more than a bird would be lying if it said its nest was its unique creation and not a collection of identifiable bits from my yard—a knot of cat hair, a stem from a maple leaf, a bit of string from a package, a finger of dryer lint.

What is your favorite book?

Hmm ...that’s one of those “desert island” questions. I love many, many books, but I can’t claim a favorite any more than I could say which of my pets is my favorite. If forced to grab either my favorite book or favorite pet in fleeing a burning house, I’d wind up burning to death because I couldn’t choose.

What book would you read three times?

I’ve read lots of books three, five, eight, ten times or more, but many of them I’ve read because I teach and so I assign certain books in particular classes every few years. Just for myself, I’m sure I’ll read Middlemarch a few more times before I die, as well as An American Tragedy and all of Jane Austen.

Excerpted from the “20 Questions Author Interview”© 2011 The Reading Roomtm