Two books formed me at different times in my writing life. The first was Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. At first, I was impatient. Where was the plot? Then I read it again and was swept away by its lyricism, its psychological insight, its willingness to "stay" with the nature of consciousness. I was taken with the ways in which the novel challenged me and my notions of what a novel could do. I loved how it danced on the edge of poetry and prose.
With Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior, I was struck by the novel/memoir’s blend of family storytelling and myth. It was a highly imaginative way of dealing with being in two worlds culturally. I think what both of these books have in common is they challenged me artistically.
