I’m a writer. Before I even knew what a literary agent did, how to write a query letter, the ins and outs of the publishing industry, I was inspired to put pen to paper (yes, I actually used to put pen to paper!) and write. I wrote poetry, some memoir pieces, non-fiction for medical journals, and finally fiction. I couldn’t help myself. It just happened.
I’m a pretty funny person in person, but not a lot of my writing is funny. It’s all pretty serious, except this blog, which is hysterical, don’t you think? I don’t like feeling scared and I never go to scary movies or read scary things (besides the New York Times) so I doubt I will ever try my hand at horror writing. I have written some pretty sexy scenes though, in a couple of my manuscripts, which just made me blush thinking about them. I like writing about minute details in minute detail. I have a 15 page short story all about a woman making coffee in the morning. The characters in my fiction are usually weird in some way, even if that weirdness shows up as more normal than normal. My poetry is all autobiographical and my memoir pieces read like fiction. I doubt I will ever write anything where I create a brand new world on another planet or in another dimension. But you never know.
I’m a reader. When I was a girl I wanted to be Jo March or Heidi or Laura Ingalls. Now I like to read Zadie Smith, Geraldine Brooks and J.K. Rowling. I wish I was half as good a writer as Amy Tan, Barbara Kingsolver or Kurt Vonnegut. Patricia Polacco makes me cry with almost every book. I’ve read all of D.H. Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and J.D. Salinger. I’ve read Charlotte and Emily but not Anne Bronte. I’ve never read Moby Dick. I rarely read poetry any more, but I used to love William Carlos Williams. I’ve read Dune so many times my mouth gets dry just thinking about it. I love Kevin Henkes and would marry him if we weren’t both already married. I read a great biography of Eleanor Roosevelt once. I read 10+ Anne Rice books, including the erotica. I think John Green is really cool, for a boy, and I’d like to have drinks with Libba Bray one day. I didn’t think Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom was one word too long and I want to go to the Channel Islands (UK not CA) because of Margaret Leroy’s The Soldier’s Wife. I don’t have a favorite author, a favorite book, a favorite movie or a favorite song.
So you write literary fiction? Romance? Memoir? Science Fiction? Really scary horror? You like to read fantasy? You live for the next vampire/demon/angel/selkie story? You would never read _____ (fill in the blank). You always read ______(fill in that blank, too). You’re a Christian writer, a lesbian writer, a writer of color? All of the above? Alright. It’s all good. Keep on truckin’.
Do you write in one particular genre? Why? What do you read? Are you a snob about any of it?
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