My earliest reading memory

The Little Engine That Could. My mom used to read it to me at night and then one day I could read it myself. I read it over and over in bed, the story of a valiant little train making it over the mountain when all the bigger ones refused. The thrill of that never got old. I must have been four.

My favourite book growing up

I was really into Judy Blume. Obsessed. My very favourite, theone that made me think about being a writer for the first time, was It’s Not the End of the World. It’s told in the first person (which was a revelation to me) in the voice of a 12-year-old whose parents are divorcing. The dialogue is funny and sharp. It was the opposite of going through the Looking-Glass: Blume helped me see at age nine how all the drama and craziness and humour and meaning is right here in everyday life.

The book that changed me as a teenager

I read Sherwood Anderson’s short story cycle, Winesburg, Ohio, when I was 14 or 15 for a high school class.…