Happy 4th of July! As we ease into the holiday weekend, I’ve been thinking about why I became a writer. I’ve also been thinking about the books that inspired me over the years, and I would love to hear what those books are for you. Was there a specific book that made you want to become a writer? For me, those books were Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine. I’ve always been a reader, but much of my young life was spend reading traditional Western male authors. In school, we read Beowulf, Lord of the Flies, then Beowulf again. (Blech.) As the daughter of Yugoslav immigrants–and someone who spent much of my childhood traveling back and forth between Chicago and the former Yugoslavia–I never saw myself or my experience mirrored in the books I was reading. […]
What Inspired You to Become a Writer?
