1. What is your favourite childhood book?
Early childhood: The Monster at the End of This Book. Late childhood, The Eyes of the Dragon, by Stephen King.
2. What is the title of the first book you purchased for yourself?
Hard to remember, but I think it might have been Albert Camus's A Happy Death. As you can clearly see, I was into light fluffy books in my late teen years. I was probably listening to Morrissey while reading, just to create that happy optimistic vibe.
3. Which author or authors do you most admire and why?
Gao Xingjian, author of Soul Mountain. His work is by far the most interesting and maybe most important (at least to me) that I have ever read. His belief that we should create art completely free of commercial and political pressures is a bold claim in this Internet age of author self-promotion. The fact that he really does seem to conduct his artistic life in accordance with the philosophy he espouses, well, that gives me hope.
4. What are you reading at the moment?
A lot of young adult. Stiches by David Small. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr. I have a Young Adult book coming out in May that I am very excited about. It's called Sorta Like A Rock Star.
5.Which classic book have you always meant to read and know you'll never round to it?
Don Quixote, for personal reasons.
6. If you had to take one book to a desert island, what would you choose and why?
Besides The Silver Linings Playbook? Man, that is a very hard question. I will cheat and say The Complete Works of Shakespeare. If you call shenanigans, I will say Hamlet, in hardbound form, which makes it a book, right? I could read Hamlet a million times.
7. If you could recommend a book to someone who said they hated reading, what would you choose?
Depends on the person and her interests. The graphic novel WatchmentN comes to mind. When I was teaching reluctant high school readers they usually enjoyed Kurt Vonnegut's work, particularly Slaughterhouse 5 or Breakfast of Champions. Kurt Vonnegut is my hero. Some have called him a literary gateway drug.
8. Was it a book or a person that inspired you to write?
My books are always inspired by the real-life people who keep me feeling hopeful. My work is usually about unlikely people finding each other at just the right time. Many such people have found me when I needed them most. Those serendipitous moments fuel my work. But it was probably my early love of movies that most made me want to become a storyteller.
9. If you weren't an author, what would your alternative career be and why?
Screenwriter, movie director. I love telling stories. I'm a storyteller. I love film. Someday I hope to work in film. I just wrote and shot a book trailer for my upcoming novel. I had a blast working with a local film crew.
10. Which book character’s life would you most like to have lived?
Even though I'd worry about the existential dread, I'd pay good money to live in a Haruki Murakami novel for a time—say Kafka on the Shore or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. A life where cats talk and fish fall from the sky and you maybe even get to meet Colonel Sanders the hustler, well that sounds interesting to me. Vivid. Word.
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