Crabby McGrouchpants

About Me

1390 S.A.T.'s, B.A. from the college of the Univ. of Chicago, Class of '94 ... don't "hate me 'cause I'm beautiful," though!

Why do you write?

My method is:

(1.) I don't write when I "want" to, or when I "don't want" to, but, when I can't deny I won't get a second chance/opportune time to do this next little bit;
(2.) After "daring" myself, and writing against the "tension" to whatever-it-is potentially "sucking" (or, being "bad"); and
(3.) Having come up with a "concept" worth pursing/exploring and a (planned) "scope" to how long the piece will be!

I write to create "shared experiences" along the lines of works I've enjoyed/appreciated/"grown" as a result of, myself!

Any favorite authors? Books?

Daphne du Maurier; William Gibson; and Thomas Pynchon.

Obviously, the REAL list of authors would be too long to list here -- as I imagine it would for ANY practicing fiction writer -- but those'll do as "emblematic," I suppose.

FAVORITE BOOKS: "Rule Britannia," "Virtual Light," and "Vineland" from the above.

Might as well add "The Last Man" by Mary Shelley (which I just recently finished), "Amerika, or the Man Who Disappeared" by Franz Kafka (actually the only Kafka I've EVER read, incredible as it may sound), and "The 'Genius'" by Theodore Dreiser (which I am currently reading) for flavor.

And Pagan Kennedy -- pretty much everything by her -- but since that would take you through fiction into 'zines, journalism, history, comics, and what not, she might not be as easily "peggable" as a straight fiction influence for me.

Though, you know what? Maybe everything listed above is what I try to cram into/cover in my own fiction. Probably I learned most of it -- the yearning and reaching, as well as the level of accomplishment -- from her, so she'd probably be the ideal reference.

So, I'll say: Pagan Kennedy. My "literary god" (to quote and affirm someone else, I forget who).

[Is this a bit much? I'll shut up now. Thanks.]

ALSO FAVES O' MINE: Douglas Coupland; Philip K. Dick; Simone de Beauvoir; Jean-Paul Sartre; Dorothy Parker; Chuck Palahniuk; Jack Kerouac; Herman Melville; Louisa May Alcott; William S. Burroughs; Emma Forrest; Leslie Stella; Jenna Black; Mario Acevedo; Jes Battis; Ian McEwan; Roberto Bolaño; Ramsey Campbell; Alain Robbe-Grillet; Theodore Dreiser; Chelsea Quinn Yarbro; Stephen King; Peter Straub; John Shirley; Clive Barker; Jack Womack; Ambrose Bierce; Sarah Vowell; André Breton; Jim Knipfel; Paul Lukas; Cory Doctorow; Marco Vassi; Mark Leyner; Willa Cather; Haruki Murakami; and Flannery O'Connor.