What I’m reading right now…
Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, a mesmerizing story collection by Peter Orner, a terrific literary thriller, Abroad, by Katie Crouch that came out in the fall, and Miles Harvey’s incredibly moving How Long Will I Cry? a nonfiction book about the impact of youth violence on Chicago’s South Side. All of these about lost voices, the pull of the past. 

My favourite book growing up…
The Outsiders (the first truly cool lit characters I’d read about) or possibly S is for Space by Ray Bradbury because I was obsessed with space travel as most Apollo-era kids were.

My all time favourite book is…
Moby Dick because of Pip, the black cabin boy who falls overboard and has visions and because of Melville’s fearlessness—he goes where the story takes him.

The book I would recommend everyone to read…
One Hundred Years of Solitude because it changes how you look at the world and it’s terrifically funny, sad and mesmerizing all at once. 

The book I wish I wrote…
The novel River of Earth by James Still, an Appalachian writer. Beautiful. 

My guilty reading pleasure is…
noir fiction.  

The book on my bookshelf that I have never read…
The Goldfinch. It keeps staring at me.  

The book that never should have been turned into a film…
As I Lay Dying (which I love and wish James Franco didn’t)

My book is…
Sometimes strangely funny even through the sadness   

I’ll never forget…
When my 6 year old daughter went missing after school…we found her an hour later as she’d inexplicably gotten past school staff, crossed several major streets, and wandered ¾ of a mile to a friend’s house for an imaginary play date.  

My favourite place is…
Two: The Hill Country west of Austin, Texas and Yosemite National Park in California. 

The most dangerous thing I have ever done is…
When I was 13, I tried unsuccessfully to sneak back into my own bedroom window at night (after sneaking out) and had a cop hold a gun at me. 

The first time I…
am usually confused.   

I regret…
not learning carpentry from my grandfather Dewey.  

I remember…
being a bad loser when I was young. 

The one piece of advice I should have listened to but didn’t…
”people change” 

I love…
beauty in language and landscape.  

I hate… 
when someone feels the need to fill silences.  

I wish…
I was in the movie of The Third Man with Orson Welles

I can’t say no to…
tortilla chips and homemade green or roasted pepper salsa.  

Yesterday, I…
watched a History Detectives program about a 19th century Austin, Texas serial killing that’s mentioned in my novel.