Interview Roundup: Who Do You Love?

GalleyCat referred me to a Newsday interview with David Gilbert, who took up fiction when he was young because "creative writing was the only thing at school that wasn't graded." I'm strongly encouraged by the description of The Normals, Gilbert's first novel, that comes through in the article, even more so by the revelation that Gilbert's favorite writer is one of my own recently acquired pleasures, Stanley Elkin.

Speaking of the question of an author's favorite authors, I've been sitting on this Walter Mosley link for a while, but he has his own take on the subject:

Most writers will lie to you, because, say you're a young black woman writer, of course you're going to say Zora Neale Hurston, even though maybe Nancy Drew really launched you into the world. I could say Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Albert Camus. But for me it was really comic books--the Fantastic Four. Everything you read as a kid has an incredible impact on you. So I'm afraid to answer that question, because I'd have to leave out Jack Kirby, the artist who drew Fantastic Four.