#ThisorThatThursday Author Interview with Diane Zinna
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I’d like to welcome author Diane Zinna to #ThisorThatThursday.
A few of your favorite things: Fresh notebooks, speckled paper clips, soft flannel pillowcases, the Schmigadoon! soundtrack, and hygge time at night reading with my daughter.
Things you need to throw out: Boxes I tend to save because they’re so sturdy and could be good for something, someday.
Things you need for your writing sessions: My laptop, ice water, quiet time in my car. (I mostly write in the front seat of my car.)
Things that hamper your writing: Wi-Fi.
Things you love about writing: How it feels like the core of me.
Things you hate about writing: How sometimes I need reading glasses on top of reading glasses.
Things you never want to run out of: Seltzer, sharpened pencils, side doors into my hardest stories.
Things you wish you’d never bought: Those Tik-Tok leggings.
Something you’re really good at: Duolingo Korean lessons
Something you’re really bad at: Speaking in Korean
Something you wish you could do: Sing in something more than a lullaby voice.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: Reject help from others and do everything myself.
Something you like to do: Ice skate. Why don’t I ice skate anymore?
Something you wish you’d never done: As a teenager, I threw away stacks of diaries from childhood. I can still remember the day I stupidly tossed them all in a dumpster and shouted, “I don’t need these! I’m a different person now!”
Best thing you’ve ever done: Left my last job.
Biggest mistake: Believing that a company was like a family.
Most daring thing you’ve ever done: Bungee jumped at Action Park (see harrowing documentary, “Class Action Park”).
Something you chickened out from doing: Speaking before the UN.
The coolest person you’ve ever met: The writer Grace Paley. We browsed the aisles of a Florida Walgreens together, picked out cheap earrings and lawn chairs, and drove around town.
The celebrity who didn’t look like he/she did in pictures/video: The lovely Catherine Keener, who I saw browsing a wood furniture store in the Smoky Mountains.
Things you always put in your books: Grief, travel, new love, sweet dogs, my soul.
Things you never put in your books: Sarcasm, cynicism, the word “anal” (until recently).
The craziest thing a reader said to you: After reading a fictional passage about sickly tigers that skulk away alone into the jungle forever, my mother-in-law said she finally understood me.
The nicest thing a reader said to you: That my acknowledgements felt like a letter in a bottle from one writer to another.
About Diane:
Diane Zinna received her MFA from the University of Florida and has taught creative writing for more than a decade. She leads her popular "Grief Writing Sundays" every week for writers of all levels of experience. The All-Night Sun, her first novel, was longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and the Cabell First Novelist Award. Originally from Long Island, Diane lives in Virginia with her husband, daughter, and doodle.
Let’s Be Social:
Website: dianezinna.com
Twitter and Instagram: @dianezinna
Book Title: The All-Night Sun (Random House, 2020)
