1. Do your Kentucky roots have anything to do with your interest in horses?
None whatever. I didn't grow up in Kentucky and while I didn't dislike horses, I did not especially like them. I have come to like them more now, but I didn't write the book for that reason.
2. You've taught a lot of college students. Does a writing student ever really surprise you with a great unexpected leap of insight, or ability? Or are they mostly knowable from the beginning?
1. Are you an outdoors person or more of an armchair trekker?
My ideal day would begin with a long hike in the mountains to pick blueberries or, if there's snow on the ground, multiple sledding runs down our driveway/sledding hill with my husband and two daughters and our neighborhood friends. Then, once I'm thoroughly worn out, I would come indoors, pour a glass of wine and curl up in our old recliner by the woodstove to spend a few hours reading a really great book. So the answer: both.
We are looking forward to hosting friend and neighbor Caroline Leavitt at the store on October 13th, as she launches her new novel Cruel, Beautiful World.
1. What part of your own life informed Cruel, Beautiful World? (Do you have a sister?)
1. What do you like best about Ireland?
The chatter, the gab, the slagging: the free spirited, occasionally dangerous and always garrulous way we talk.
2. Is Lib's reaction to perceived Irish backwardness of that era related at all to your own of other eras?
Yes, but Lib also has to learn that many of her own preconceptions of the Irish are sheer prejudice. I see the novel as a sort of dialogue between England and Ireland, science and faith.
Jessica Knoll, author of Luckiest Girl Alive, will be in conversation with Emma Donoghue, author ROOM and new novel THE WONDER, at DeBaun Performing Arts Center on September 22nd at 7 pm. TICKETS
She answered a few questions for us:
1. Do you miss the magazine world?
5:54 am
The sun is well up over Manhattan, sky still rosy. It's going to be a beautiful day but I knew that already since I've been keeping a close eye on the weather report. The Mayor is coming at 10 to cut the ribbon. Do we have the ribbon? I think so. Are the scissors sharp enough?