Emma Sweeney: I love to write about gardening, to instruct gardening, to share gardening stories so I was thrilled to be able to write about gardening. I have not considered writing a novel.
Maria Rosa Menocal: I think I answered that up front: this is a field I have worked in for many years and written about as an academic but finally felt I needed to write about for the much larger public that can be reached through a trade press book. I have considered writing fiction but I am not sure it is something I will ever do, I suppose mostly because I am a teacher of literature and have so detailed an appreciation of the brilliance of the great novels --- and how rare they are. It seems to me I can work hard enough to write a good work of nonfiction, but to write a novel of lasting value requires a great deal more than hard work, a certain kind of rare talent.
Tony Perrottet: Writing a book was a fairly natural progression from writing lots of long magazine articles --- and wanting to do something longer and juicier. (I guess I go into the specific inspiration for Route 66 AD back in Question 1.) It was really an extension of the themes in my travel writing: I focus on a specific place in the world, and look at how the past manages to survive into the present. Have considered writing fiction --- and do dabble in it --- but so far my imagination seems to be fired more by reality. If I turn to fiction, it will be something based on a true story. I suspect I'm good at exaggerating and elaborating on the truth, but not so good at making things up from scratch.
Lynn Schooler: The Blue Bear was meant as a tribute to a very dear friend, a Japanese photographer named Michio Hoshino, who was killed by a grizzly in 1996. Michio had had a tremendous impact on me, influencing me in a way that changed my whole outlook on life, and the book was my effort to try to examine, explain, and share that effect. I am working on another nonfiction book, but also have a trilogy of novels underway. I enjoy working on the fiction in a way that is altogether different from the act of writing nonfiction. I think it has something to do with being allowed to give my imagination free rein, creating characters and situations that take on a life of their own, as opposed to the grind of sifting through and organizing a mountain of facts. There is tremendous intellectual satisfaction in writing nonfiction, but for me, the act of creating an entire world through fiction carries a unique intuitive and emotional reward.
Mona Golabek: My mother's inspiring story! No [I have not considered writing fiction]!
