Non fictional literary work that entails injustice. I disliked it when others are ill treated just because of their circumstances, vulnerability and status in life. Which is why my debut Novel 'Denizen Of Prejudice', was targeted to address victims of injustice. I was a victim of injustice. The traumatized anguish I experienced gave me the impetus to pen a story line as expressed in my work
Whenever I read anything in Peter Mayle's "Provence" series ("A Year in Provence" "Encore Provence," etc.) it not only inspires me to write, but to move to France and eat. Everything.
Right now, people inspire me. But as far as reading goes, daily news articles. Poetry from Charles Simic. Those types of things. I feel full of admiration and ideas, and want them to come out. To be expressed.
Novels by poets, lately. How’s that for killing two birds with one stone? My husband, a mathematical engineer, communicates a reverence for how things work that is very inspiring, and my last two poetry collections have used science I learned from him. He’s also a great raconteur. His stories about growing up in India have filled my novel, Shiva’s Arms.
What type of reading inspires you to write?
I love short stories. They allow the freedom to come and go and I do not have to worry getting lost when my book goes missing. (I am sure we have a house gremlin. He is a compulsive thief. Someday I will find his stash of: sponges, cups, socks, sewing needles, books, pens, thoughts and sanity.)
I love children's lit. There is so much joy. Things can become very dark and there seems to be so much freedom.
Like many, I love the works of: Lewis Carroll, Clive Barker, Tamara Thorne, L. Frank Baum, Anne Rice, Steven King, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Jane Yolen, Tanith Lee, Cameron Dokey. I know I leaving out dozens more.
Creative Writing. If I read something where the Author has a unique idea that no-one else has thought about or even writes in a different manner it inspires me to do the same.
Anything. Good storytelling. I might say, "I like that character", or "I could do that better", and then do my own version, my own take of the work. Really bad writing sets me off, too, especially when it has the potential to be great writing. Anything at all, really.
I write what I like to read. In some ways, I am my own biggest fan. I write what I like to read and what I want to see in a story. I'm not trying to write something that I think will make it to the best seller's list. I'm writing a story that I enjoy. Then, I just hope everyone else will, too. And yes, I read my own work. Somehow, after it's all done, been edited and revised, etc...it's just different reading it than when I wrote it.
Reading anything that I disagree strongly with and that gets under my skin will often produce a voluminous rebuttal from me. Sometimes, I write about something I like, just like sometimes rocks fall upwards when you drop them.
Oh I can list plenty of authors: Steinbeck, Carver, Flannery O'Connor, Margaret Laurence, Cormac McCarthy, Alistair MacLeod, Joseph Boyden. Really, I'm inspired by writers who tell a story, but speak to something "other" than just the plot. They push their language to reveal greater truths about who we are as people, how we relate to the world.
Good fiction, or a brilliantly written human interest story.
Those pieces that are an inspiration are most uplifting to me. Those pieces that we all can relate to that put us all on one playing field, those that relate to all human. I love true stories about someone's life in that they had to fight to survive. Most oftentimes they were not only fighting for themselves, but to show the rest of us how it is done.
I love poems that are full of humor, but slyly. I love poetry that reveals the heart in a way that only the story teller can do, with the clearest in authenticity.
I get inspired by reading books about subjects I know nothing about. My latest reading is Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters and I’ve learnt a lot about late Victorian music halls and the socialist movement and it’s inspired me to explore it further in my new novel ‘Liverpool’.
I always pick up a book of poetry to clear the cobwebs away. The Canadian poet Anne Carson has been a favourite "pipe-cleaner" for about a year now. Before that it was Miroslav Holub, and before that the doomed and brilliant Sydney poet Michael Dransfield whose collected works I have carried all over the world with me.
Factual accounts of people's life experiences, whether it's Geronimo in his own words, Dostoievsky in 'Memoirs from the House of the Dead', or Michael Crichton's 'Travels'. |
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