Cassie McCullagh

So he wrote things like Vassals of Majesty.

And it was so much fun to write about a writer.

Honestly, none of my books is autobiographical.

I don't work that way.

But I even started believing that Vassals of Majesty might be a real book.

but you're right there's but directly behind my my writing desk there's a huge book case it goes to the ceiling it has a ladder and it's you know oh that sounds like heaven oh it is heaven and the and the books that are immediately behind me that are looking over my shoulder as I'm writing are the ones that are most influential on you know for the current project and then there's some that just always stay I mean

Dickens is always looking over my shoulder telling me to pay attention to plot.

Virginia Woolf is always looking over my shoulder saying, you know, don't waste anybody's time and don't get too tied up with plot.

And then Steinbeck is saying, look, there are real people out there who need you to speak for them.

Those writers are my teachers.

And oh, don't let me leave out George Eliot, Middlemarch.

If I had to choose one book that was the only one left and I just had to keep reading it over and over for the rest of my life, it would be Middlemarch.

Why?

because it's about everything.

It's a different book every time I read it.

It's so rich and so complex.

I mean, there are times I read, I mean, I make a point of rereading it every five years or so just to see what else I'll find.

And as I grow older, I develop sympathy for some of the characters that I hated the first time around because I understand their predicament better.

She just had such understanding of relationships and sort of communities and the way sort of ecosystems of people.

It's so rich.