Here’s how it works:

1 – If you want to be interviewed, leave a comment.
2 – I will respond; I’ll ask you five questions.
3 – You’ll update your journal/weblog with my five questions, and your five answers. (If you don’t have an journal or weblog, you can just answer them in a comment.)
4 – You’ll include this explanation. (Unless you’re posting it here, obviously.)
5 – You’ll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

And here are the questions she asked:

1. Describe your perfect “dream job.”
Ideally, I’d be writing. But I also think, ideally, I’d be sleeping in a lot more often. A job with a more leisurely pace, without the long commute, which affords me the freedom to be creative when I can (but doesn’t put a stop to the funds whenever maybe I’m not) — now that’s a dream job. The things I’d love to do — edit a zine, write a comic book, etc. — are difficult things to get off the ground, much less find success at. Much less find cash with. But, the fact that they’re dreams that haven’t come true is nobody’s fault but my own.

2. What do you think is the best thing you have ever written?
Yikes. The sad fact is, nothing I’ve written has yet to be published professionally. (Volunteer newspapers and college literary magazines don’t count.) And it upsets me that I’m not playing at — or not allowing myself to play at — that higher level. But, still, there are plenty of things I’ve written of which I’m especially proud, which make me smile, and which I have to hope are worth reading. Some, like “Remembering” (PDF) were written for college credit; some, like “Boxtopia” were written to foist upon others and hopefully make them laugh; some like “Peace Group Saves Lives Worldwide” (PDF) were written for local news; and some, like this or this or even this were written as part of daily writing exercises and are among the handful I keep thinking I ought to do something with, or expand.

3. You are writing the great American novel (or collection of stories, or essays, etc.) What is it about, and what is its title?
Let’s start with the so-so American short story and move on from there first. I have a bunch of those in one stage of development or another. I just need to quit second-guessing my writing and write.

4. Who are your five favorite authors?
Five favorites? It’s difficult to narrow down the list, much less put them in any kind of order. But if I have to choose: Ray Bradbury, Paul Auster, William Faulkner, Kelly Link, Vladimir Nabokov. Some of the runners-up: Michael Chabon, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, China Miéville, Jonathan Lethem, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Harlan Ellison, Italo Calvino, Douglas Adams, Stephen King.

5. Name five books you think have had the most influence on you as a writer.
Now this is a difficult question. It’s almost always easier to spot the influence a book may be having as I’m reading it; even if what I’m writing at the time isn’t remotely the same thing, I can usually detect a certain flavor of the book creeping into it. (This, for instance, probably owes at least something to Fortress of Solitudeby Jonathan Lethem, which I was reading at the time.) It’s much easier to pick out a list of favorite books, books that have had some impact, like I did here than to start guessing which ones have truly affected the way I write. There are also short stories that have always stuck with me, like Ray Bradbury’s “Boys! Grow Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar!” (which has always kind of haunted me), or Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” (which I know has affected the way I think about plot), and Amy Hempel’s “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” (to which a short story I wrote in college was once favorably compared). But I’d have to take a complete inventory of the things that I’ve read and do some kind of side-by-side comparison to truly see which have influenced me most. At times like this, it’s always good to remember that oft-quoted Pablo Picasso chestnut: “Bad artists copy. Great artists steal.” There’s not a writer alive who can’t help but be influenced by the books he or she reads.