The Questionnaire: Maria Bustillos

How do you get up in the morning?

 It really is a miracle, isn't it.

 

Do you succumb to nostalgia?

         I never quite succumb; I love the future too much.

 

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

         Long and uncut, as they say.

 

How do you feel about your Wikipedia entry? 

         Pleasurably anonymous.

 

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

         Oscar Wilde, David Bowie, and Peter Cook.

 

Best piece of advice you ever received?

Oo I wrote a whole thing about that a matter of weeks ago.

 

Disciplined or hot dog? 

         More the latter than the former, to my cost.

 

Have you ever been defeated by a genre?

         Certainly not; I refuse to admit defeat.

 

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

         Theodore Dreiser.

 

Are you okay with blood?

So long as it's not in the context of a fatality, yes. I love seeing my own blood drawn.

 

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

         When I write I often imagine I am addressing certain friends, so yes.

 

What country would you want to be exiled in? 

         The island of Lamu, off the coast of Kenya.

 

What’s your favorite negative emotion?

         Rage.

 

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

         Mildly chaotic, with brief fits of order.

 

What is your go-to shoe? 

         1990s platforms.

 

What's your poison? 

         Gin. It's mother's milk to me.

 

What's your problem?

         How to make the world safe, fair and beautiful for everyone.

 

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

         How To Make The World Safe, Fair And Beautiful For Everyone

 

What are you so afraid of?

         I'm not. Bring it.

 

How long can you go without putting paw to keyboard?

         Is that a request?

 

Do you require a high thread count? 

More interested in the length of the staple and the purity of the fiber than the thread count, but if you are asking do I love fine linens, then a resounding Yes.

 

Who reads you first?  

Editors, thank god. Or my husband, when I'm not sure about something. He is a genius.

 

Sexy and dangerous, or brilliant and kind?

         Yes please.

 

What character or story haunts you?

         Don Gately.

 

Does plot matter? 

         Most certainly.

 

Does age matter?

         In certain contexts.

 

Do you prefer to write standing, or must you lie prone in a field of dandelions with a steno pad and a good pen? Or what? 

         Kind of comes on me like a fit. Sometimes in my sleep, even.

 

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

         Henry Fielding.

 

Is there a literary community?

         Uncountable ones, infinite, Borges-like, an ever-increasing palimpsest.

 

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

         What is your credit card number?