Q. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A. Jogging through the woods in a blizzard while listening to Bach’s Mass in B Minor.
Q. What is your greatest fear?
A. Riding a motorcycle out of an airplane.
Q. What historical figure do you most identify with?
A. Kaspar Hauser.
Q. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
A. Doubt.
Q. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
A. Rigidity.
Q. What is your greatest extravagance?
A. Monthly (and sometimes bi-weekly) acupuncture.
Q. What is your favorite journey?
A. The two-hour drive from Austin, TX, to Kerrville, TX, stopping off in Fredericksburg for roadside peaches.
Q. What do you dislike most about your appearance?
A. That it seems to be so important.
Q. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
A. “That’s interesting.”
Q. What is your greatest regret?
A. I once missed the opportunity to drive from Texas to New York with the late, great songwriter, Jack Hardy. I regret that very much.
Q. When and where were you happiest?
A. Jumping off a bridge when I was twelve.
Q. Which talent would you most like to have?
A. Seamless, oblivious confidence. And it would be nice to be more effective as a badminton partner.
Q. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
A. It may be snowboarding pants. They make such a difference.
Q. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
A. Butchering a deer.
Q. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
A. David Attenborough.
Q. What is your most treasured possession?
A. A Taylor 314 CE I bought in a Boston pawnshop for $500 when I was twenty-two and broke. My mother sent me the money without hesitation; she didn’t even ask me to explain.
Q. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
A. An airport.
Q. Where would you like to live?
A. In a tree!
Q. What is your favorite occupation?
A. Building and tending a burn pile.
Q. What is your most marked characteristic?
A. Animals trust me.
Q. What is the quality you most like in a man?
A. The ability to turn, at will, into a wolf.
Q. What do you most value in your friends?
A. Since they are such wonderful, unique people, and each in their own way, I would say I most value the example of my friends. I’ve found that all the people I love have something to teach me, some quality of being or intelligence I lack. They act as beacons by their good example.
Q. Who are your favorite writers?
A. Lately I’ve been reading a lot of John Banville and Anne Sexton.
Q. Who is your favorite hero in fiction?
A. Dante’s self-portrait in The Divine Comedy. I like how he just plods stubbornly along, even though it’s true he faints a lot. And he’s a great listener. I think if you have fortitude, curiosity and compassion, you’re basically set.
Q. Who are your heroes in real life?
A. Chris Regan, Carey Harrison, Edie Meidav, Bill Toole, Stephanie Smith, my mother, and Robert Kelly. And where would I be without my dog?
Q. What is it that you most dislike?
A. That moment when the new roll of toilet paper tears diagonally and ravels off in little strips instead of unspooling evenly like toilet paper should. Also, the addition of cream to perfectly good butternut squash soup. And telephones.
Q. How would you like to die?
A. Riding a motorcycle out of an airplane.
Q. What is your motto?
A. Too fickle for a motto, which also explains why I have no tattoos.
Mankiller, the story of two young Texas girls, orphaned renegades on the loose, will be released on June 7, 2014.
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