Samantha Hunt

Samantha Hunt is the author of the acclaimed first novel The Seas, and her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and McSweeneys and on This American Life. Her new book is The Invention of Everything Else.

From Hunt's Q & A at Powells.com:

Who are your favorite characters in history? Have any of them influenced your writing?

Nikola Tesla! He influenced my writing so much that I wrote a whole novel about him. I borrow much from the world of science for my fiction. The non-fiction of science often seems like the most wonderfully unreal thing to me. I wrote a suite of stories based on astronauts: John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin. I've also been influenced by the biologist Rupert Sheldrake. He said, "Scientific theories come from the dream realm." His experiments investigate phenomena that we most often dismiss as coincidence, such as how we know when someone is staring at us; why, when we think of a long lost friend, they often call; and how pets know when their masters are about to return home. Something in his theories resonates with my fiction.

Read the full interview.

Visit Samantha Hunt's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Invention of Everything Else.

--Marshal Zeringue