In the lead-up to the reading I did last week at Speakeasy, the lovely Alicia Carter and I chatted about my writing process, inspiration, and all things Bluegrass Symphony. Thanks for the awesome questions, Alicia — and for tough ones like this:
This is such a hard question to answer because there are so many! Gah! In terms of style, I’m perpetually inspired by Margaret Atwood (i.e. I am blindingly passionate about her turns of phrase, in everything she’s written – apart from Year of the Flood); ditto Virginia Woolf; ditto Michael Cunningham; ditto David Malouf; ditto Robert Shearman (particularly Tiny Deaths). In terms of characterisation, I constantly think about Flaubert’s Madame Bovary; Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell; Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; Patricia Highsmith’s Talented Mr Ripley; Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch. In terms of setting and atmosphere, Shirley Jackson, E. Annie Proulx, Timothy Findley…
You can read the whole interview over at the Speakeasy blog.
Lisa L. Hannett 