10 (11) Writers Who Probably Would/Wouldn’t Sign My High School Yearbook

 

 Photo credit: The Little Hawk, Iowa City High School, Iowa City

11 Writers Who Would Probably Refuse to Sign My High School Yearbook

Salman Rushdie

Martin Amis

Graham Greene

Robert Lowell

T.S. Eliot

Jonathan Franzen

Cormac McCarthy

Thomas Pynchon

Jean-Paul Sartre

Samuel Beckett

Alice, of Go Ask Alice

 

11 Writers Who Would Probably Sign My High School Yearbook with X’s and O’s & Entreaties to “Stay Sweet”

e.e. cummings

Elizabeth Strout

Judy Blume

Jacqueline Susann

George Saunders

Stephen King

Anne Lamott

Walt Whitman

James Baldwin

S.E. Hinton (ok: “stay gold,” not “stay sweet”)

David Sedaris (ok: ironically, but I wouldn’t know that back then)

 

1 Writer Who Would Sign My High School Yearbook with Footnotes that Take Up a Whole Page

David Foster Wallace

10 (ok, 12) Writers I Read in College, Then Never Again & Why Not

Anthony Trollope, too many books

 

John Milton, too lovey-dovey with Satan

 

Samuel Pepys, too much gossip about people I haven’t met

 

Alexander Pope, too rhymey

 

William Makepeace Thackeray, too sharp

 

William Wordsworth, too flowery

 

William Faulkner, too many words

 

William Blake, too ambiguous; experienced or innocent…which the F is it?

 

William Carlos Williams, too William-y

 

Matthew Arnold...though I remain eager to publish my undergrad story about a frat party, title inspired by “Dover Beach”: “Where Ignorant Armies Clash by Night”

 

Jonathan Swift…though I continue to nod in pleased recognition at every newspaper op-ed reference to “A Modest Proposal”

 

Thomas Hardy…though I don’t know why not; I loved his books back then! Maybe too far from the literary crowd these days??

NOTE: I'm taking a summer break from writer interviews and am just going to have FUN with this blog for a month or so.

10 Writers to Road Trip With

 

Hunter S. Thompson, if he lets you drive

Jack Kerouac, if you’re a man

Laura Ingalls Wilder, if you enjoy a slower pace

Madeleine L’Engle, if you tesseract

John Steinbeck, if it’s California or bust

Joseph Conrad, if you think there’s a chance you won’t want to return

Geoffrey Chaucer, if you’re fine with a group rate

Robert Frost, though there are miles to go before you’ll sleep

John Milton, as long as it's not an island cruise

Flannery O’Connor, if you leave the grandmother and Pitty Sing at home

NOTE: I'm taking a summer break from writer interviews and am just going to have FUN with this blog for a month or so.

10 Male Writers and My Educated Guess at How They Order Their Eggs

 

Raymond Chandler: Hard-boiled

Charles Bukowski: Scrambled

Lewis Carroll: Over-easy

Truman Capote: Coddled

Walker Percy: In a Ramos Gin Fizz

Gustave Flaubert: Souffle

Henry Miller: Raw

A.A. Milne: Baked custard (pictured above, with not enough nutmeg on top)

Ernest Hemingway: Poached

Philip Roth: Served with liver

NOTE: I'm taking a summer break from writer interviews and am just going to have FUN with this blog for a month or so.

10 Living Writers I Admire Yet Am Afraid to Meet & Why

(in no particular order)

 

1.     Lionel Shriver*: too relentless

2.     Margaret Atwood: too angsty about not yet winning the Nobel she deserves

3.     Donna Tartt: too happy living a life without social media

4.     Zadie Smith: too talented

5.     Roxane Gay: too worried I’m accidentally friends with her nemesis

6.     Erica Jong: too sexy

7.     Jay McInerney: too tired of talking about my beloved second person POV

8.     Jon Krakauer: too eager to investigate

9.     Tara Westover: too educated

10.  Colson Whitehead: too many Pulitzers

*Wearing that sombrero didn't help....

 NOTE: I'm taking a summer break from writer interviews and am just going to have FUN with this blog for a month or so.

10 Dead Writers I Would Cook For

(in no particular order)

 

1.     Willa Cather: This fellow Midwesterner gets pink Jell-O salad.

2.     J.D. Salinger: I would make him eat a big ole rare steak and a gigantic baked potato with tons of sour cream

3.     F. Scott Fitzgerald: My husband will be charge, and we’ll get out the good silver shaker and FILL it with icy cold gin martinis, all night long.

4.     Ernest Hemingway: I’m not good at cooking fish, but I bet he’d like the spicy, secret salsa and the story of how I wheedled the recipe out of that restaurant owner in Kearny, AZ.

5.     E.B. White: I think I’ll order lox and bagels from Barney Greengrass in NYC.

6.     Louise Fitzhugh: Tomato sandwiches, natch!

7.     Herman Melville: I’m worried about scurvy, so I think I’ll make him a smoothie.

8.     Laurie Colwin: Oh, darling, I’ll happily let you cook for me!

9.     Raymond Carver: Mashed potatoes with gravy (and if you don’t know why, read this).

10.  Nancy Mitford: We each get our VERY own Fuller’s Walnut Cake (pictured above).

 

 NOTE: I'm taking a summer break from writer interviews and am just going to have FUN with this blog for a month or so.