Stuff
Bill Scheller Revealed
Revealing Questions
- Q. How would you describe your life in only 8 words?
- A. Wife, son, house, dog, fortunately still no job.
- Q. What is your motto or maxim?
- A. Go ahead, have some more.
- Q. How would you describe perfect happiness?
- A. A just-right balance of time and money, which are often mutually exclusive. Other than that, sitting up in a tree in Eastside Park, Paterson, New Jersey, with a pile of Uncle Scrooge comics on a summer afternoon in 1958.
- Q. What’s your greatest fear?
- A. For myself? Decrepitude.
- Q. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you choose to be?
- A. Other than at my fireside in Vermont? Maybe skiing, late afternoon, surrounded by aplenglow. Or in cozy bistro like the Bris Bise in Gaspé, Quebec.
- Q. With whom in history do you most identify?
- A. Teddy Roosevelt
- Q. Which living person do you most admire?
- A. Nobody in particular -- any of them could screw up tomorrow.
- Q. What are your most overused words or phrases?
- A. Needless to say (then why the hell say it?)
- Q. What do you regret most?
- A. Not having spent my 20s traveling and goofing off, instead of in my first marriage
- Q. If you could acquire any talent, what would it be?
- A. Making really good furniture, or playing an instrument well
- Q. What is your greatest achievement?
- A. Staying out of cubicles
- Q. What’s your greatest flaw?
- A. Procrastination
- Q. What’s your best quality?
- A. Ability to keep old friends
- Q. If you could be any person or thing, who or what would it be?
- A. Myself at 20, with a little more sense
- Q. What trait is most noticeable about you?
- A. Opinionated
- Q. Who is your favorite fictional hero?
- A. Dunstan Ramsay, in Roberston Davies' Deptford Trilogy
- Q. Who is your favorite fictional villain?
- A. As a group, anyone small-minded and petty who has power over others, like Mrs. Bridgetower in Robertson Davies' Salterton Trilogy, or Irene Pollock in Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street series. These people are worse than the obvious hateful and violent choices for this category.
- Q. What is your biggest pet peeve?
- A. Asinine rules and regulations
- Q. What is your favorite occupation, when you’re not writing?
- A. Travel
- Q. What’s your fantasy profession?
- A. University professor (history)
- Q. What 3 personal qualities are most important to you?
- A. Honesty, independence, sense of humor
- Q. If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your days, what would it be?
- A. Pot roast
- Q. What are your 5 favorite songs?
- A. City of New Orleans, September Song, Positively 4th Street, Un Bel Di, anything by Loreena McKennitt
On Books and Writing
- Q. How did you come to write Manifold Destiny?
- A. A publisher begged my friend Chris Maynard and me to write a car-engine cookbook after reading about our unusual culinary exploits in a national magazine, the editors of which had in turn learned about us from a newspaper article, which chronicled a plan (successful) we had to feed ourselves during the course of an 8,000 mile road rally -- a perfect example of one thing leading to another. Twenty years later, here we are on our third edition.
