As a writer, I am a blotter. In reading I absorb the ink out of the words, suck it in, place it aside and it marks my own clean sheets of paper.
If I read contemporary literature, I come closer to the edge. If I read Munro, I am matter of fact yet deep into character. I do not dare read Edgar again; I still have "baroque" accent that has held me for forty years.
I don’t know what my style, my voice is. I think maybe that I have none at all. Or the noise of a crowd. Or who happens to be onstage at the mic.
As a writer, I am merely a blotter.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology