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I grew up in a little town called Muskogee, Oklahoma,
and my parents were not poor, but they didn't have just tons and
tons of money on to spend on books
and I was a voracious reader, so I spent
many, many afternoons when other kids were out
running and
swimming and I was hold up at the library,
the Muskogee Public Library
and
I just loved it. I mean
I just always felt like
I was at home there
and it was just all these worlds that were
available to me.
and
librarians introduced me to of some of my favorite books.
And of course my aunt was a librarian
and she passed a few years back, but whenever I give a
talk at a library always like to think of my aunt Dee.
I'm kind of happy that I've become an author and
and that I'm at a library. I think when I was young that kids were
only allowed to take out a three books at a time.
My mom went to the librarian and said look, three bucks, you know if we
can only take home three books we will have to come back in two days.
So I think I got to take the maximum or whatever.
But you know, just
being able to explore so many different things. I went through a
phase where
I was interested in the kings and queens of England, then I
went through the arachnid phase, so everything about spiders,
and of course there's all the fiction, which is always my favorite,
Everything from "Encyclopedia Brown" to "Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle"
were introduced to me by library.
I use the library mostly for research
In this next novel and "Mud Bound" certainly, I spent huge amount of time
at the Columbia University Library and also at the New York Public Library,
which is an amazing resource.
So I use it mostly for research. Libraries, for so many people
who are like me as a kid,
who can't afford to just buy and buy and buy books.
This is just something that's
kind of being taken away and
and the librarians are the ones who really
can sort of direct
people towards - Oh you would really like this, or you'd be
interested in that.
as they did so much with me.
So I hate to think of there being fewer libraries and librarians.
I'm completely against censorship of any kind.
I think it's an absolutely horrific idea
and that would apply to
y not only communities and say, well
"Catcher in the Rye" is a
corrupting influence on young minds, but also to
things like these revisionist rewrites of Mark Twain, which is
another kind of censorship, you know, it's political correctness censorship.
So I'm not a big fan of censorship.
Well I just finished a book, and I'm about to plunge into my third novel
which I'm not really talking alot about yet.
But before I do that, I'm actually working on several short stories,
one of which is about a comedian who has lost his "funny."
Another is about the second coming of Christ,
and the third story is actually titled, right now,
"Naked Woman Walks Into a Library,"
so it's about... takes place in the library.
I'm just trying to keep my fans as confused as I possibly can.