I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.
Invariably it turns out to be who you've been reading in the last couple of weeks, and two hours or two days [on favourite authors
I feel very conscious of my influences. T.H. White is very important for me.
When I was growing up, I remember having read all the books in the library. I often tried to emulate my favourite writers.
I always advise children who ask me for tips on being a writer to read as much as they possibly can. Jane Austen gave a young friend the same advice, so I'm in good company there.
One thing that's always helped quell my writerly anxieties is seeking out interviews with writers I admire.
John Dos Passos, Raymond Carver, Flaubert and William Maxwell were all very influential when I first started writing. Now, the writers I'm most interested in are the writers who are most unlike me: for example, Denis Johnson.
I try to read writers who are better than me because it inspires me to be better.
I would pretend when I was a child that I was Charlotte Brontë, because I'd read Jane Eyre when I was ten and, although I didn't understand it, I loved the idea that this woman had written a book. I wanted to be her.
Louise Gluck, C.K. Williams, Thomas Lux. A lot of the poets that I like are the ones that influenced me as a writer.
