What books (or writers) have been the most influential in your development as an artist? Can you discuss a favorite book or writer in terms of your own writing?
Since boyhood I have had a strong love of ghost stories, time travel stories, and stories that could just be considered “weird fiction,” and I used to devour the Alfred Hitchcock short story anthologies that he published in the 1960s. As a writer I now gravitate toward literary ghost stories, so the two biggest influences would be Edith Wharton and M.R. James. But I also love discovering modern literary writers who have tackled the ghost story – such as Tennessee Williams, Fay Weldon and William Trevor.
