Writers as Readers

1.       When you read, what do you need to be comfortable? When I am reading, my prime environment would be silence with natural lighting (preferably outside), and I like to be left to my own devices as to not be interrupted.

2.       What genre (types of writing) interests you? What specifically about this genre interests you? Why are you drawn to science fiction, for example? My favorite type of book is fantasy/ science fiction. Lately I have been really into post-apocalyptic type of reading such as “Divergent” or “World War Z”. I believe I am drawn towards these books because of a certain feeling of “what if?” that I get from them, and they usually have great cliff hangers.

3.       Which author do you think your writing style is most like? Do you purposely imitate certain writers and/or try to avoid writing like certain writers? I can’t rightly say that I imitate any certain author, but whenever I wrote the story “The Talk”- published in Think Magazine- I was reading a lot of Heather Brewer novels and I feel that it had a lot of influence on how I wrote the story.

4.       What is one of your best memories connected with reading? One of my favorite memories with reading was when I stayed up until four o’ clock in the morning reading the fourth Vlad Tod book, to only then be left hanging at the end for the fifth one. I was depressed for days just thinking about how the next book was going to be the final series, but it was almost a funny kind of depressed, if that makes any sense.

5.       Have you ever picked up a book and been excited to turn the next page, then the next, then the next? What book? Why couldn’t you stop reading? Is there a book that you had to trudge through to finish? A favorite page-turner of mine would have to be the book Twisted, by Laurie Halse Anderson (writer of Speak). This book was an incredible and depressing book about a boy who had been framed of raping a girl at a party by the girl and the actual culprits, and the whole school turned on him. I had to keep reading because the book was so incredibly sad that I had to find a happy ending. Did I find it? Maybe.

6.       Who was your first reading teacher? Why do you remember her/him? Was it a “teacher” or someone else (family?) who taught you? My first reading teacher ever was Mrs.Norman from my kindergarten class at Wanda Gray elementary. She taught me how every letter in the ABC’s sounded and when to use them.

7.       What was the first book you remember reading? Why does this book stand out in your memory? My first book that I ever read by myself that was worth noting was in fourth grade when I read “Framed in Fire.” This novel stands out in my memory because first off it was given to me by my sister and second it was the only book I could say I had read for years to come.

8.       What is your favorite book series? Why is it your favorite? My favorite book series of all time would have to be the “Divergent” series that I am currently reading. This is honestly even taboo to me now that I think of it, because I can only really read books that have a male as the main character, not because I am sexist, but because I usually (or used to) have to completely connect to the main character to get my full kick out of reading, but reading this book with a girl as the main character gave me a little bit of a different perspective in my reading experience.