Toni Morrison was a big influence on my work since I was a teenager, what she did with English. I joke that I think she speaks 20 Englishes simultaneously, that she knows how to do that.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I took a couple of creative writing classes with Joyce Carol Oates at Princeton University, and in my senior year there, I took a long fiction workshop with Toni Morrison. I fell in love with it.
I write heavily under the influence of James Taylor.
Toni Morrison has a habit, perhaps traceable to the pernicious influence of William Faulkner, of plunging into the narrative before the reader has a clue to what is going on.
Elizabeth Bishop in particular had a big impact on me personally as well as artistically. Her insistence on clarity is something I rate very highly.
I love writers all across the board, but one who influenced me very directly at the beginning was Mary Renault.
Of the female black authors, I really like Morrison's early books a lot. But she's really become so much a clone of Faulkner. He did it better.
Toni Collette has been a huge influence. She was my absolute number one idol, and then I got 'United States of Tara.' I was pinching myself. I couldn't believe the first day I was on set, and I got pages of dialogue of real stuff to do with her.
When I was in grad school, I had to admit I hadn't read Toni Morrison. My teacher, the novelist Colum McCann, said I had to. I read 'Beloved' and 'Song of Solomon.' Pretty incredible.
I'm crazy about Shakespeare, who was a notorious word inventor. And my wife is an English teacher, and she's hilarious.
I learned to be a regional writer by reading people like Flannery O'Connor. She was a huge influence.