Columns Proust questionnaires #73 Fall 2013 ,
Proust questionnaire: Lisa Moore
Lisa Moore is the author of two collections of short stories: Degrees of Nakedness and Open, plus the novels February, Alligator and, most recently, Caught. Moore—who says if she could be anyone else for a day, she would be Isadora Duncan or Beyoncé—lives in St. John’s, NL
What do you consider your best quality?
Tenacity, stick-to-it-iveness. I never say die.
A quality you desire in a partner:
Curiosity. The desire to know everything, and a willingness to share whatever he finds out.
What do you appreciate most about your friends?
Creativity, the ability to laugh, to see the world in unexpected ways, to tell good stories, to be bursting with life.
What is your idea of happiness?
A room with a big glass wall that looks out on the water, a wood stove, a comfy couch, a cappuccino, a book, a sunset. Or: same room, big party.
If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?
Isadora Duncan or Beyoncé.
A natural talent you’d like to possess:
Singing.
Your worst quality:
I am outrageously disorganized about paperwork.
Where you would most like to live?
Room mentioned above, outport Newfoundland. Or: room mentioned above, Greece.
Your favourite food & drink:
Juniper smoked halibut. I just had it at the restaurant in the Fogo Island Inn prepared by chef Murray McDonald. And a very cold beer at the end of the day, every now and then.
Favourite Animal:
Hunter, our English setter: disobed-ient, graceful/goofy, regal/gangly, long pink tongue, eyes full of longing, languid, demanding, wistful, loving.
Your favourite poet(s):
Wallace Stevens, Seamus Heaney, Sharon Olds, Derek Walcott, Ken Babstock, Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Sue Goyette, Jeanette Lyons, Carmelita McGrath, Mary Dalton.
Favourite author(s):
Don DeLillo, Lorrie Moore, Mavis Gallant, Elizabeth Bowen, Anne Enright, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Zadie Smith, Michael Crummey.
Your favourite fictional hero(es):
Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
Your real life heroes:
The nurses who work in the emergency ward of the Health Sciences Centre hospital [in St. John’s], because they have unflagging energy, good humour, and such deep compassion.
What is your greatest fear?
Being sent into outer space, and not being able to get back.
How you want to die:
Lying in a field, looking up at the stars.
Your present state of mind:
Revved up, hopeful.
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