Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

"The sun was like a huge fifty-cent piece that someone had poured kerosene on and then had lit with a match and said, 'Here, hold this while I go get a newspaper,' and put the coin in my hand, but never came back."
 

That's one of my favorite lines from the novel Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan. You'd never guess that this experimental, metaphor-slinging comedian could influence somebody like our guest novelist, Sarah Hall.

 
Today, Hall explains who influenced her the most, and how these unexpected influences can change your life. Welcome to the penultimate installment of my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions.
 

In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a serialized set of weekly interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.

 
Jason Boog:
You write the most deep, poetic prose. Who are your biggest influences, prose-wise? Who are the writers that fledgling authors should read? Continue reading...

Sarah Hall:
My first influences were some of the Welsh poets, Dylan Thomas among them, and I've enjoyed a mixed bag of prose writers really. Michel Ondaatje, Fitzgerald, Harper Lee, Steinbeck, Richard Brautigan, and Virginia Woolf.

Some of my favourite authors seem a world  away from what it is that I write and how I write. The influence might not  show up stylistically or obviously but there has been something in each of  those turned pages that I've benefited from.

Writers starting out should read whomsoever it is that gets them interested  in the written word, gets them thinking about writing words, and there's no law or formula or protocol dictating that. It's profoundly personal.

 If someone floats your boat, chances are you may want to put out to sea yourself. But the Ocean is a big place and you have to learn your own navigation skills.

 
Note: If serialized interviews drive you nuts, you can check out the whole interview archived here...