ANNIE ASKS Kerry Schafer

ANNIE ASKS Kerry Schafer

Q: How would you like to die?

A: Suddenly and without warning while I’m in the middle of doing something I love. Family lore has it that my great grandfather was out on a mountainside collecting firewood the day a tree fell on his head and abruptly ended him. He was in his eighties. I’ve always felt that this was a good way to die. In a perfect world, I will have just finished typing those two glorious little words THE END when the tree drops on me.

Q: What is your motto?

A: Depends on which day you’re asking. I have many and they change with my mood, the seasons, and how disruptive my menagerie of neurotic rescue animals has been of late. But they all seem to be more or less directly connected to these lines from Tennyson’s Ulysses:

“Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little…”

Q: Who is your hero of fiction?

A: Oh my God, Jack Reacher. In real life, I’m a peaceable sort of person. I believe in forgiveness and second chances and I can twist myself into all sorts of knots trying to cut people slack and understand why they’ve done the heinous thing they’ve just done. But in fiction, I do adore living vicariously through Jack. It’s so immensely satisfying to travel around with him, smiting the bad guys and delivering unto them the justice which they deserve.

Q: What do you most value in your friends?

A. The ability to find the bright side. Not that we don’t have bitch and swear sessions, because I also have a dark side. But the ability to switch out of that and look for silver linings and good things and find the good in people and to laugh about pretty much anything is top of the list for me.

Q: What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

A: Being stuck in the creative doldrums. Any set of life or psychological circumstances that keep me from involving myself in some sort of satisfying, challenging, creative project – that’s when I’m most miserable.

Q: When and where were you happiest?

A: Now, really. I’ve spent the last twenty years or so deliberately choosing to cultivate happiness. It has less to do with actual life circumstances or the state of the world than people tend to believe – and pretty much everything to do with choosing habits of thought and attention. That said – my life at this time revolves around books and writing and other creative projects and I live in a place surrounded by trees rather than houses and traffic, which is idyllic for me.

Q: Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

A: The word awesome. I say it – and write it – far too frequently.

Q: On what occasion do you lie?

A: I’m a terrible liar in general, so I don’t make a practice of it. Usually if I lie it’s to spare someone's feelings over something they don’t need my opinion on. Like – what possible good will it do them to know that I do not like their dress or that those pants DO make their butt look big? You know what I mean.

Q: What is your greatest extravagance?

A: Coffee and books. I don’t even want to tell you how much money I spend on books. As for coffee – I’ve discovered a not-quite-local roaster whose secret mojo is that he doesn’t roast the beans until AFTER they are ordered. So every week I order my beans on Sunday in order to get them on Tuesday. He drops them off at the local florist in my small town (this is for real, not making this up) and emails me that the beans are ready and I go pick them up. Yes, they cost a little more. But they are worth it. I will cut out protein and veggies before I give up my books and my fresh roast coffee. Oh – and I grind them as needed (of course!) and make each cup via pour over. Life is good.

Q: What is your favorite occupation?

A: Does reading count as an occupation? Because that would probably come first. If not, then writing.