Name: Scott Simon Books: "Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption"; "Windy City"; "Pretty Birds"; "Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball"; and "Home and Away"
Also Known As: the host of NPR’s Weekend Edition
Website
1. Where do you find inspiration?
Our daughters. I write books that share those things that are most important, precious, and moving to me (and to pay for their horseback riding).
2. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
Write. Nothing sharpens your writing like writing.
3. What are you reading right now?
- "Triumph of the City" by Edward Glaeser
- "The Fates Will Find Their Way", a first novel by Hannah Pittard
- "True Grit" by Charles Portis
The first line from my novel, "Pretty Birds": Irena Zaric put her last stick of gum in her mouth, winked at a bird, and wondered where to put her last bullet before going home.
Favorite opening line from a book not written by me? Saul Bellow’s "The Adventures of Augie March": I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.
5. What book has inspired or affected you in some way?
Forster’s "A Passage to India" made me want to see India and write novels. It made me appreciate how an artist insinuates himself into different people.
6. If you could sit down at dinner with three other authors, living or dead, which three authors would you choose and why?
Mark Helprin, E.M. Forster, and Susan Sontag. They were and/or are all brilliant, funny, interesting, and great storytellers.
So there you have it. A sneak peak into what inspires and moves one of America’s most admired writers and broadcasters.
Stay tuned for more Q&As from other featured authors.
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