Leading Questions by Jan Edwards
I was recently sent a Q&A interview by a publisher for an upcoming anthology Into the Night Eternal: Tales of French Folk Horror, ( which (shameless plug) will include my novella ‘ A Small Thing for Yolanda’ ). As always that online interview sheet included that old chestnut ‘Which books have influenced your writing the most?’ And, as always, I was at a loss for an answer. The books that had any effect on us at age four are never going to be the same at age fourteen, or forty-four, or sixty-four. That said I am not sure that books read in adulthood ever affect us in the same way that they do when we are young. I suspect what the question is designed to portray authors as astonishingly erudite by naming the latest literary success or else one of the classic worthies such as Joyce, Naipaul or Woolf. I have read and enjoyed my share of literary classics – ancient and modern, but I suspect the books that really influenced me the most will always be those fav...