The Questionnaire: Colin Dickey

By The QuestionnaireMarch 26, 2012

How do you get up in the morning? 


There is the dog. He wakes everyone up at 7 a.m., but doesn't need to go outside or be fed. He's just lonely.


 


Do you succumb to nostalgia? 


As a child I spent a lot of time in my mother's car while she sang along to 50's and 60's music on the radio. I felt trapped. Nostalgia is probably the worst way to approach history.


 


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


The image that always comes to mind is a smith hammering the hell out of some metal object.


 


How do you feel about your Wikipedia entry?


Waiting for someone to create it.


 


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


Anyone who won't hog the free bread.


 


Best piece of advice you ever received? 


"Do what you love, and people will find you."


 


Disciplined or hot dog? 


What?


 


Have you ever been defeated by a genre? 


Most of them.


 


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


There's no need to give people a reason not to read.


 


Are you okay with blood? 


Writing about it, yes. But otherwise totally squeamish.


 


Who is your imagined audience? Does it at all coincide with the real one? 


I generally assume my real audience is imagined.


 


What country would you want to be exiled in? 


Antarctica. I know, not a country.


 


What's your favorite negative emotion?


Bile.


 


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


I work best at Starbucks. Are they neat?


 


What is your go-to shoe? 


I lead with the left foot.


 


What's your poison?


Brown liquor.


 


What's your problem? 


Changes on a daily basis.

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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