Guest post by: Ismet Prcic

Author of Shards, Ismet Prcic appears at the Wordstock Festival on Saturday, October 8 at 1pm on the McMenamins Stage.

What are you reading now?

Brothers and Keepers by John Edgar Wideman and Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley.

Who is your favorite new author?

I have two. Nami Mun and Ramona Ausubel. For Ramona’s book you’ll have to wait until January.

What is your favorite book of the year?

Widow by Michelle Latiolais.

Favorite book of all time?

Complete Plays by Sarah Kane. But if you’re asking for fiction it’s Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson.

Which writers have most influenced you?

Samuel Beckett, Sarah Kane, Charles Bukowski, Aleksandar Hemon, Kate Millett.

What are you working on now?

I’m some sixty pages into my new novel about a woman whose twins go missing. She never finds out what happened to them. But, as she waits for some news of them, which she knows/intuits will never come, she re-imagines her life as a Hollywood movie and herself played by a famous actress.

Another focus at the festival this year is children’s literature.  What was your favorite book as a child?  Who is your favorite children’s book author now?

I read a lot of children’s books when I was a kid. My mother tells me so. I even have a book of poetry dedicated to me by my elementary school librarian as a pupil who read the most books in a school year. Yet, I can’t, for the life of me, remember the titles. Even if I could these would be ex-Yugoslavian writers writing in ex-Yugoslavian tongues and it wouldn’t do anybody any good.

What is your favorite website for writing/literature/etc.?

I like Bomb Magazine. I like Identity Theory.

What is your favorite food?

Braised mutton with okra and homemade bread. It’s a childhood (Bosnian) thing.

Any connection you have with Portland or to the Pacific Northwest.  Have you been to Portland before and, if so, what is your favorite thing about it?

My wife and I both wanted out of SoCal so bad, her because she’s a redhead and the sun down there is merciless, and me because I was sick of driving and squinting and having to explain where Bosnia was. We went online, independently of each other, to www.findyourspot.com and answered a long questionnaire about our habits, wants, what-have-yous and, lo and behold, gotten the same exact results:

1.) Portland, OR
2.) Providence, RI
3.) Eugene, OR.

We came to Portland to check it out and here we are still.

NEA did a feature on Ismet that you can see at http://www.nea.gov/features/writers/writersCMS/writer.php?id=10_23