- Where were you born & raised?
Right here in Minneapolis, where my great-grandfather had a corner store (kind of like the Surdyks).
- Do you own a pet?
Not at the moment, though for many years we did have a beloved springer spaniel named Charlie who lived to an unusually old age.
- Favorite food?
I’d like to say something sophisticated like beluga caviar, but I’d be lying. It’s peanut butter.
- List some favorite books/movies?
Almost every book written by Cormac McCarthy, Kazuo Ishiguro, and George Saunders. And just about any movie directed by Martin Scorcese (but especially Raging Bull). Oh, and Wizard of Oz.
- Favorite bands/music style?
My musical tastes are pretty eclectic, so any short list of favorites would be woefully incomplete. But here are a few of them, in roughly chronological order: jazz from the late 50s and early 60s (particularly Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and John Coltrane), Bob Dylan, The Band, Patti Smith, the Pixies, Wilco, The National, Spoon, Big Thief, and Waxahatchee.
- Favorite Season?
I love most of fall, the first couple months of winter, and the few weeks that qualify as spring here in Minnesota. But it’s hard to beat drifting on a lake in a kayak or a pontoon boat in the summer.
- Something you really dislike?
The month of March, when winter seems to drag on forever and the snow piles turn gritty grey. If we could just cut it out of the calendar, I’d settle for an 11-month year.
- Fun fact about you?
I went to high school with Prince, a fellow Gemini who was born 12 days before me. Sadly, I didn’t really know him.
- What are some other things people may not know about you? I’ve worked as a writer and editor most of my adult life, and I’m currently writing a book about legendary apple growers in American history. (And yes, Johnny Appleseed is one of them, but not necessarily the most interesting of the lot. That distinction might go to Henderson Luelling, the abolitionist quaker who brought the first grafted apple trees from Iowa to the Pacific coast over the Oregon Trail, and later led a free-love cult on an ill-fated expedition to Central America.) I can also list all the states in alphabetical order.