Five Quick Questions with Bonnie Jo Campbell
Author of Mothers, Tell Your Daughters
Welcome to Five Quick Questions, The Ribbon’s ongoing mini-interview project. We’ll send the same five questions to authors on their book tours, in advance of their readings at our store. Bonnie Jo Campbell reads at Literati with Andy Mozina on October 12th.
Q: What are you reading now? What books will you be taking with you on tour (other than your own)?
As usual I’m reading a bunch of books at once. I’m re-reading the Oz books that I read as a kid. I just finished The Road to Oz, and next I’ll be reading Ozma of Oz. I’m reading the Tom Stoppard play Arcadia, because it’s about mathematics as well as other things. I’m reading a friend’s short story manuscript, and my next novel is Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi, but first I have to stop re-reading Sula by Toni Morrison and Geek Love by Katherine Dunn.
Q: Which section are you most likely to be caught browsing in at Literati?
At Literati I might be wandering into the nature section, because I’m currently obsessing over mushrooms and other plants. I’ve been foraging!
Q: If we could conjure up any writer, living or dead, to join you in conversation after the reading, who would it be? And what would you ask them?
I’d love it if you could dredge up Flannery O’Connor. As you know I brought her life-size likeness (in cardboard) with me to the store last time, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about her, and I even got to give a talk about her at the Library of Congress. I would like to ask her why she refused to see James Baldwin. Really, Flannery, what were you thinking?
Q: Is there a reading, anecdote, or piece of writing advice that’s stuck with you from any literary (or other) event you’ve attended?
Our local Friends of Poetry group wanted to put on a Mother-Daughter reading, and so they put up three pairs, and one of those was me and my mom. My mom isn’t really a writer, but she is a good story teller, so I worked with her to get one of her verbal stories on paper in good form. It was the story of her accidentally burning 200 acres and a horse barn in South Carolina. My mom knocked it out of the park. Once she had her story on paper to read from, she had as much grace and personality as any practiced performer. This reminded me how everybody has important stories to tell if they are given an opportunity. Everybody needs to be involved in this writing enterprise because we all have stories to tell. And it is joyful and heartbreaking to hear the stories that really matter to folks, whatever their professions.
Q: Literati’s Book Ninjas never waste time online — we’re too busy reading! — but since we’re here: what article or website have you lately found worth wasting time on?
Oh, gosh, I have to give a shout out to my friend Monica Friedman. She did something amazing, which is that she made 16 comics, one for each of the stories in my collection… It’s unbelievable that she did this… These are literary criticism and commentary and some story summary, and I am honored. Here’s one of them, for my story “Tell Yourself.”