The Questionnaire: Laurie Winer

By The QuestionnaireMarch 26, 2012

How do you get up in the morning?


First I remove the cat from my head.


 


Do you succumb to nostalgia? 


I long for the days when everyone did ...


 


Do you write long and cut, or short and backfill?


Both, yes, whatever works.


 


Lunch with any three people who ever lived; who do you invite?


Buster Keaton, William Shakespeare, and Oscar Hammerstein II.


 


Best piece of advice you ever received?


Let it be.


 


Disciplined or hot dog?


Depends who's cooking.


 


Have you ever been defeated by a genre?


I am impatient with science fiction. Figuring out this world is hard enough.


 


Which classic author would you like to see kicked out of the pantheon?


Whoever wrote Beowulf.


 


Are you okay with blood?


The opposite of OK.


 


What country would you want to be exiled in?


France, south of.


 


What's your favorite negative emotion?


Self-righteousness (in myself -- can't stand it in others).


 


Is your study neat, or, like John Muir's, is your desk and floor covered in "lateral, medial, and terminal moraines"?


Lateral, medial, terminal, supraglacial and rubegoldbergian.                  


 


What is your go-to shoe?


Laure Bassal.


 


What's your poison?


Golden Pineapple.


 


What's your problem?


It's plural.


 


Title of the book you're probably never going to write, but would kind of like to get around to?


"The Kooky World of Jim Jones"


 


What are you so afraid of?


Disappearing.


 


How long can you go without putting paw to keyboard?


12 hours.


 


Do you require a high thread count?


You have no idea.


 


Who reads you first?  


Husband, if he's not too busy.


 


Sexy and dangerous, or brilliant and kind?


I need all four.


 


What character or story haunts you?


Miss Tita in "The Aspern Papers".


 


Does plot matter?


Only when it does.


 


Does age matter? 


Only when it does.


 


Who is the author you'd most like to impersonate online?


Dorothy Parker.


 


Is there a literary community?


Of course.


 


What's the question or questions we should have asked, had we known?


When are you going to get over Hitler?


 


 

LARB Contributor

The Questionnaire is, as her name suggests, a multifarious and mysterious interlocutor. Chameleon-like, her questions change their color as they approach each new interviewee.

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