Stuff
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor: A Self Portrait
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Revealed
About Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Revealing Questions
- Q. How would you describe your life in only 8 words?
- A. Fulfilling, intense, consuming, organized, poignant, messy, worrisome, spiritual
- Q. What is your motto or maxim?
- A. Don't sweat the little stuff
- Q. How would you describe perfect happiness?
- A. Contentment with what I am and what I have now, forgiveness of past mistakes, and optimism about the future.
- Q. What’s your greatest fear?
- A. That tragedy might happen to those I love.
- Q. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you choose to be?
- A. Exactly where I am now, with a few side trips to Greece and Ireland.
- Q. With whom in history do you most identify?
- A. Thomas Jefferson
- Q. Which living person do you most admire?
- A. Barack Obama
- Q. What are your most overused words or phrases?
- A. "So," "very," "also" and "however."
- Q. What do you regret most?
- A. thoughtless remarks that hurt another person
- Q. If you could acquire any talent, what would it be?
- A. Scuba diving
- Q. What is your greatest achievement?
- A. Raising two great sons
- Q. What’s your greatest flaw?
- A. Worry
- Q. What’s your best quality?
- A. Efficiency
- Q. If you could be any person or thing, who or what would it be?
- A. Never a thing! I'm pretty content with me.
- Q. What trait is most noticeable about you?
- A. I'm organized. I smile a lot.
- Q. Who is your favorite fictional hero?
- A. Huckleberry Finn
- Q. Who is your favorite fictional villain?
- A. Judd Travers
- Q. If you could meet any historical character, who would it be and what would you say to him or her?
- A. I would love to sit down with the real-life African-American teenagers who integrated that Alabama high school in the 60's. I'd like to ask them where they got their courage, how they were able to study, how they survived the taunts and ridicule, and whether any of their white classmates supported them and offered friendship.
- Q. What is your biggest pet peeve?
- A. People who yak on cell phones on the train.
- Q. What is your favorite occupation, when you’re not writing?
- A. Baking bread
- Q. What’s your fantasy profession?
- A. Professional singer
- Q. What 3 personal qualities are most important to you?
- A. Kindness, tolerance, sense of humor
- Q. If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your days, what would it be?
- A. Pizza
- Q. What are your 5 favorite songs?
- A. The Man I Love, I'll Be Seeing You, Follow the Drinking Gourd, "All That Jazz," "Summertime"
On Books and Writing
- Q. Who are your favorite authors?
- A. I like the Southern writers who tend to write about ordinary people in extraordinary situations. I especially enjoy books by Eudora Welty, Anne Tyler, and Flannery O'Connor. But I also love Larry McMurtry, T.C. Boyle, Eric Larson, and those wonderful #1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith.
- Q. What are your 5 favorite books of all time?
- A. This is an impossible task, but five that come to mind are Lonesome Dove, War and Peace, Main Street, Huckleberry Finn, and Madame Bovary.
- Q. Is there a book you love to reread?
- A. There are so many books I've yet to read that I rarely reread one.
- Q. Do you have one sentence of advice for new writers?
- A. Write the story that only you can write, a story to which you can contribute something unique that is totally you, no matter how ordinary or mundane.
- Q. What comment do you hear most often from your readers?
- A. Your stories are so real, and you write about things nobody else talks about.
- Q. How did you come to write Cricket Man?
- A. This is really weird, but the idea came to me one summer day in the pool when we owned a house. It was a very plain in-ground pool--no diving board or anything--but I loved to swim in the early morning, and once I'd turned on the filter, I'd spend the first ten minutes or so rescuing all the crickets that had fallen in the water overnight. Some would be clinging to a leaf or a twig, but all were moving slowly toward the leaf catcher, and I'd see if I could reach them before they ended their lives in filter hell. I'd stretch out my finger, like God extending his hand to Adam in the Michelangelo painting, and at first the cricket would always leap away, floundering about on the surface of the water. But the closer he got to extinction, the better my hand must have looked, and finally he'd trust me enough to cling to my finger, and I'd flick him to safety. Funny thing was that some of them, after they'd dried off a bit, would hop right back in again, which says something about the IQ of a cricket. If I were a 13 year-old boy, I thought, amused, I'd probably come out here each morning thinking, "Okay guys, you're saved! It's Cricket Man, to the rescue." And that's the way the book begins. Except that in Cricket Man, the book, Kenny ends up a saving a lot more than crickets.
