We’ve talked recently with Michael Czarnecki, Linda Lee Harper, and Molly Gaudry about their work. And writers cannot really talk about craft, or their work, or their influences, without also talking about what they are reading. So here is the list of books they shared as either influential or on their bedside table. Who’s on your list? Who are you reading right now?
Sherwood Anderson Winesburg, Ohio
Aimee Bender Willful Creatures
Heather Christle What Is Amazing
Beverly Cleary Beezus and Ramona
James Dickey Zodiac
Norman Dubie The Mercy Seat
Nora Ephron I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts On Being a Woman
Forrest Gander Core Samples From The World
Jack Gilbert The Great Fires and The Dance Most of All
Linda Gregg All Of It Singing
Christopher Hitchens Mortality, Arguably
Laura Kasischke Space, in Chains
Loren Isley All The Strange Hours
Eowyn Ivey The Snow Child
John Jodzio Get In If you Want to Live
Amy King Slaves To Do These Things and I’m The Man Who Loves You and I Want To Make You Safe
Galway Kinnell, everything
Carole Maso The Room Lit by Roses
Rebecca McClanahan Deep Light
John McPhee Oranges
Tea Obreht The Tiger’s Wife
D.A. Powell Cocktail and Useless Landscapes: or A Guide For Boys
Marilynne Robinson Housekeeping
Jose Saramago Death with Interruptions
all things Lisa Sewell
Nathalie Stephens The Sorrow and the Fast of It
Brian Teare The Room Where I Was Born
Thoreau Journal
Chase Twitchell Horses where The Answers Should Have Been
Kurt Vonnegut Slapstick
Lew Welch Ring of Bone
Arthur Whaley Translations from the Chinese
James Wright This Journey
pea river journal 
So who was reading The Mercy Seat and what does he/she think of it? I normally really like Dubie, but I had a hard time penetrating his more recent book Volcano.
Hi Grant. It was Linda Lee Harper (the Dubie). I just asked her to stop over here and answer your question.
________________________________________