Stuff
Anita Diamant Revealed
About Anita Diamant
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What is your birthdate?:6/27
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Previous occupations:I've been a writer since I was 25 years old
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Favorite job:uh... writing
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High school and/or college:George Washington High School, Denver, Washington University, St Louis, State University of New York at Binghamton
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Name of your favorite composer or music artist?:JS Bach, Stephen Sondheim
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Favorite movie:Shakespeare in Love, Walk on Water, Bull Durham
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Favorite television show:The Daily Show & The Colbert Report
Revealing Questions
- Q. How would you describe your life in only 8 words?
- A. Friend-filled, creative, busy, well-fed, healthy, bookish,talky, blessed.
- Q. What is your motto or maxim?
- A. Cultivate cheerfulness... and gratitude.
- Q. How would you describe perfect happiness?
- A. A day at the beach.
- Q. What’s your greatest fear?
- A. A slow painful death. What else is there to fear?
- Q. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you choose to be?
- A. at the beach...
- Q. Which living person do you most admire?
- A. Nelson Mandela
- Q. What are your most overused words or phrases?
- A. You'd have to ask my friends. But I think "terrific" might be among them.
- Q. What do you regret most?
- A. Unintended unkindess.
- Q. If you could acquire any talent, what would it be?
- A. Playing the piano, but in the meanwhile, I'm teaching myself to play the ukelele.
- Q. What is your greatest achievement?
- A. My relationship with my daughter.
- Q. What’s your greatest flaw?
- A. Impatience.
- Q. What’s your best quality?
- A. Loyalty
- Q. If you could be any person or thing, who or what would it be?
- A. I'd like to be a lake.
- Q. What trait is most noticeable about you?
- A. The blue eyes.
- Q. Who is your favorite fictional hero?
- A. All of Jane Austen's smart, plucky girls.
- Q. Who is your favorite fictional villain?
- A. The men (fathers, guardians, suitors) in Jane Austen novels, who don't deserve them.
- Q. If you could meet any historical character, who would it be and what would you say to him or her?
- A. Virginia Woolf. I ask questions and just listen to her talk. If I could get up the nerve, I'd ask about the suicide.
- Q. What is your biggest pet peeve?
- A. The misuse/misspelling of "it's," which is a contraction of "it is." Why is that so hard?
- Q. What is your favorite occupation, when you’re not writing?
- A. Reading. Is that an occupation?
- Q. What’s your fantasy profession?
- A. Singer/actress
- Q. If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your days, what would it be?
- A. Bread and chocolate and fruit. (I know, that's three but this is hypothetical anyway.)
- Q. What are your 5 favorite songs?
- A. "A Case of You," Joni Mitchell, "Anthem", Leonard Cohen, "Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes," Paul Simon, everything by Antonio Carlos Jobim
On Books and Writing
- Q. Who are your favorite authors?
- A. I dislike this question. There are just too many important writers in my life to number much less name. But among my pantheon: MFK Fisher, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jane Austen, Walt Whitman.
- Q. What are your 5 favorite books of all time?
- A. Among my faves: The Art of Eating by MFK Fischer, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez, Leaves of Grass by Whitman, A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, The Sabbath, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
- Q. Is there a book you love to reread?
- A. Leaves of Grass
- Q. Do you have one sentence of advice for new writers?
- A. Read broadly, deeply, historically. When writing: revise, revise, revise. And then revise some more.
- Q. What comment do you hear most often from your readers?
- A. One of them: Is the Red Tent going to be made into a movie?
