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| photo: Eugene Ghymn | |
Susan Palwick is an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she teaches creative writing and literature. Her previous novels are Flying in Place, The Necessary Beggar and Shelter, all published by Tor Books. She has also published a story collection, The Fate of Mice, and a poetry chapbook, Brief Visits: Sonnets from a Volunteer Chaplain. Her fiction has been honored with a Crawford Award from the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, an Alex Award from the American Library Association and a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. Her new novel is Mending the Moon (Tor, May 14, 2013).
On your nightstand now:
The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. I love medical nonfiction, and this "biography of cancer" is a fascinating read.
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Once and Future King by T.H. White; both of my parents loved this book, even though neither of them ordinarily liked fantasy, so it was a family choice. I also loved The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little by E.B. White, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Nightbirds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken, I, Robot by Isaac Asimov and the People series by Zenna Henderson.
Your top five authors:
Chris Adrian, Peter S. Beagle, John Crowley, Ursula K. Le Guin and Geoff Ryman.
Book you've faked reading:
Mimesis by Erich Auerbach; a friend recommended it after college, and I did read parts of it, but found it very slow going.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, a justly celebrated nonfiction account of the culture gap between a Hmong family in Merced, Calif., and the American doctors who are treating their severely epileptic daughter. I think everyone should read it.
Book you've bought for the cover:
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle (when I was eight): I'd seen it on a display at my local bookstore and loved the cover, but was nervous about spending that much of my allowance money; my library didn't have a copy yet. My mother got it for me for Christmas that year. So I didn't buy it for the cover, but the cover made me ask someone else to buy it for me.
Book that changed your life:
The Last Unicorn. I was immediately captivated by the language, especially the songs, and as I got older, I found the book increasingly resonant for what it said about love and loss, wealth and poverty, time and mortality. I still think it's a far more profound book than most people realize.
Favorite line from a book:
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." --From Neuromancer by William Gibson. This is the first line of Gibson's novel, the book that, if it didn't invent cyperpunk, certainly put it on the map. I read the book on a long bus trip not long after it came out, and as soon as I read that first line, I thought, this is going to win all the science fiction awards this year. Turned out I was right.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Possession by A.S. Byatt. My husband gave me this book for Christmas when I was in graduate school. I remember sitting on our couch, opening the book to the first page and falling headlong into it.
Book that kept you going during a hard time:
The Last Coin by James P. Blaylock. During my first year of graduate school, I was exhausted and discouraged and considering dropping out. I was enrolled in a Ph.D. program in English Literature, but whenever I talked about why I loved books or the emotional effect they had on me, my professors scolded me for being immature. I don't remember what made me pick up the Blaylock book--which most definitely wasn't course reading--but in it, a character rereads Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (specifically the "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" chapter), and meditates on how much it moves him, and on how certain people in the world are simply impervious to being moved by story that way. The scene's beautiful in its own right, but it also reassured me that my own response to books was indeed valuable.