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Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor. Photographer and date unknown.

authors

Here is a short list of some of my favorite "deceased authors."

  • Flannery O'Connor
  • Truman Capote
  • Richard Yates
  • D. H. Lawrence
  • William Faulkner
  • Shirley Jackson
  • Vladimir Nabokov
  • Anne Sexton
  • James Wright
  • Carson McCullers
  • Charles Dickens
  • Jane Bowles
  • Wallace Stegner
  • Tennessee Williams

And here's a rather lengthy alphabetical list of contemporary authors whose books I love, or whose writings have influenced or affected me in some way. (If you're thinking of checking any of these writers out, please do!!)

  • Dorothy Allison
  • Charlotte Bacon
  • Iain Banks
  • Clive Barker
  • Lynda Barry
  • Richard Bausch
  • Stephen Beachy
  • Dodie Bellamy
  • Bruce Benderson
  • Francesca Lia Block
  • Brian Bouldrey
  • Poppy Z. Brite
  • Rebecca Brown
  • Christopher Castellani
  • Michelle Chalfoun
  • Daniel Clowes
  • C. Bard Cole
  • Bernard Cooper
  • Dennis Cooper
  • Mitch Cullin
  • Edwidge Danticat
  • Don de Grazia
  • Bret Easton Ellis
  • Jeffrey Eugenides
  • Douglas Ferguson
  • Connie May Fowler
  • Peter Gadol
  • Mary Gaitskill
  • Philip Gambone
  • William Gass
  • Amy Gerstler
  • M. Gira
  • Robert Gluck
  • Brad Gooch
  • Barbara Gowdy
  • Jim Grimsley
  • Amy Hempel
  • A.M. Homes
  • Denis Johnson
  • Graham Joyce
  • Rachel Kadish
  • Kevin Killian
  • J.T. Leroy
  • Deborah Levy
  • Kelly Link
  • Paul Lisicky
  • Bia Lowe
  • Michael Lowenthal
  • Cormac McCarthy
  • Mark Merlis
  • Steven Millhauser
  • Rick Moody
  • Alice Munro
  • Ben Neihart
  • Tim O'Brien
  • Mary O'Connell
  • Sharon Olds
  • Chuck Palahniuk
  • Dale Peck
  • Jayne Anne Phillips
  • Annie Proulx
  • Paul Russell
  • T. Cole Rachel
  • Geoff Ryman
  • James Salter
  • Helen Schulman
  • D. Travers Scott
  • Elizabeth Searle
  • David Sedaris
  • Lisa Shea
  • Ken Siman
  • Tom Spanbauer
  • Matthew Stadler
  • Darcey Steinke
  • Matt Sycamore
  • Benjamin Taylor
  • Adrian Tomine
  • David Trinidad
  • John Waters
  • Steven Weiner
  • Kellie Wells
  • Edmund White
  • Joy Williams
  • Daniel Woodrell

books

Finally, a list of my absolute all-time favorite books ("Books that literally changed my life").

  • Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories (or anything else, really)
  • Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms (ditto)
  • Joy Williams, Breaking and Entering (ditto)
  • Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
  • Dennis Cooper, Closer (or maybe Frisk—I can't decide)
  • Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road (or nearly anything by him)
  • Cormac McCarthy, Outer Dark (or maybe Child of God—I can't decide)
  • William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
  • Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived In the Castle
  • D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Stories (and some of the novels, too)
  • Geoff Ryman, Was
  • Kate Millett, The Basement
  • James Joyce, Dubliners
  • James Salter, Light Years
  • Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
  • Peter Straub, Ghost Story
  • Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
  • Jayne Anne Phillips, Black Tickets
  • Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
  • Carson McCullers, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
  • Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides
  • Joan Didion, The White Album
  • J.D. Salinger, The Catcher In the Rye
  • William Golding, The Lord of the Flies
  • George Eliot, Middlemarch

Plays

Here's the official site for Prince Gomolvilas, the wonderful writer and wonderful person who adapted Mysterious Skin for the stage. It contains information about his other work, as well as a really amazing online journal and an ongoing "live novel" project in which I have recently taken part.

Additionally, my friend Pete Mercurio (who also plays on my summer softball team!) is a great playwright living in New York who has started his own theater company, Other Side Productions, with another friend of mine, director and writer Chuck Blasius. Information on Other Side can be found on their Web site.