Tiffany Baker on Jane Eyre and Leopold Bloom. See her Friday, Oct. 12 at Making the Skeleton Dance: Family in All Its Forms with Jane Ganahl, Elizabeth Bernstein, Anita Amirrezvani, Adrienne Arieff, Lucille Lang Day, Bronwen Hruska, Deborah Michel, Janis Cooke Newman, Holly Lynn Payne, and Elizabeth Weil.
1. What is your favorite book? - Jane Eyre. Ever since I first read it at nine years old.
- 2. Who is your favorite writer?
- Don’t make me pick just one! My reading morals are far too loose for that.
- 3. If the answers to 1 & 2 are different, why?
- Too many wonderful books. Still, every time I re-read Jane Eyre, I fall for the Gothic setting, Jane’s plucky spirit, and Mr. Rochester all over again.
- 4. How old were you when you were first published?
- I suppose stapling your own books together at age nine doesn’t count, even though my mother seems to think it does. The first time I was legitimately published, I was in my late twenties. It was a short story in a very nicely regarded literary magazine, and I even got paid. I’m still grateful to them.
- 5. What writing style do you most abhor?
- I’m not a fan of highly self-conscious, supposedly intellectual and very hip fiction, wherein the main character shares the same name and identifying characteristics as the author and everything’s set in Brooklyn. That’s not to say it’s wrong, just not my cup of tea.
- 6. What is your favorite writing cliché?
- “It was a dark and stormy night.”
- 7. What is your favorite word?
- Mellifluous. I like all the “L” sounds in it.
- 8. When and how do you write?
- A perfect writing day starts with lots of coffee, a nice long row early in the morning, and then I batten down the hatches, and either sit at my dining room table or in my office with a laptop. If I’m writing a new draft, I tend to sack out in my armchair. If I’m revising old stuff, I tend to sprawl out at a table with notes, my editorial letter, my dog at my feet, and the ubiquitous coffee mug. All work comes to a screeching halt when my three kids arrive home from school and begin demanding food.
- 9. What is your greatest fear when you first turn in a manuscript?
- My editor calling and responding with a long, drawn-out, “Ummmm…..” Followed by an even longer silence.
- 10. In what era do you wish you’d been born
- I’m pretty happy with now, given things like women’s rights and all the diseases we can cure. Although, Paris in the 1920’s would have been amazing, right? One of the best thing about being a fiction writer is that we get to go experience those eras if we so choose.
- 11. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
- The words scowl, mutter, sigh. I also tend to write about people’s teeth a lot. I have no idea why. It’s not like I’m constantly looking at people’s dental work when I meet them or anything.
- 12. Which talent would you most like to have?
- I really wish I could sing. I tried out for my high school choir, and was denied. Firmly. Now, my kids ask me not to yodel along with the radio in the car.
- 13. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
- I’m really proud of my three children. I hope they grow up and surpass me in every way.
- 14. Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
- Leopold Bloom in Ulysses.
- 15. How would you like to die?
- In my sleep, at a ripe old age, surrounded by family, and after one last, good long row.
