Gail Tsukiyama responds to the Litquake Author Interview.
See her October 7, 6 pm at the Lake Chalet on the shore of Oakland’s Lake Merritt for Lit on the Lake: Female Voices from the East Bay. Tsukiyama will be joined by Melanie Gideon, Ericka Lutz, Jacqueline E. Luckett, and Tracy Seeley.
1. What is your favorite book?- I have too many to choose just one, so here are three that represent different phases in my life: The Grapes of Wrath, The Persian Boy, and Family Matters.
- 2. Who is your favorite writer?
- Again, there are too many, but they include Ian McEwan and Alice Munro and David Malouf.
- 3. If the answers to 1 & 2 are different, why?
- I believe inspiration strikes at all different times in your life.
- 4. How old were you when you were first published?
- It was a poem in a literary mag when I was in college.
- 5. What writing style do you most abhor?
- Writing that calls attention to itself.
- 6. What is your favorite writing cliché?
- Write what you know.
- 7. When and how do you write?
- On a laptop. I try to sit down every day to write or revise for a few hours in the late morning and afternoon. If I’m on a deadline, I work best very late at night.
- 8. What is your greatest fear when you first turn in a manuscript?
- That the foundation of the story and the characters don’t hold up, and that my editor is going to call me on it. It never gets easier!
- 9. In what era do you wish you’d been born?
- Right here and now. The past still feels very present, while the future offers limitless possibilities.
- 10. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
- The word “toward” showed up a lot in my last manuscript.
- 11. Which talent would you most like to have?
- I wish I could have an innate musical talent; to be able to sit down at a piano, or to pick up a cello and make beautiful, soulful music.
- 12. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
- I hope it’s still to come.
- 13. How would you like to die?
- Still with the faculties to see life filled with mystery and possibilities and humor. I’d like to have said my goodbyes to my family and friends, drank down that perfect glass of wine, and finished reading one last wonderful book before simply closing my eyes to sleep.
