Alison McGhee is the author of the new children's book Firefly Hollow and the forthcoming Maybe a Fox, written with Kathi Appelt.From McGhee's Q & A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: Both Firefly Hollow and Maybe a Fox involve interactions between humans and animals. Why does that intrigue you?Visit Alison McGhee's website.
A: I have a dog and a cat, and beyond I like watching animals when they don't know a human is nearby. A deer when I'm sitting on the porch of my shack in Vermont, birds at the little bird bath in my front yard, the rabbits who live in my backyard vegetable garden.
What is their experience of the world, this same world that I live in? How does it appear to them, and what do they smell and taste and see that I can't? Questions without answers, because I'm just a human being and limited to human powers.
Beyond that, though, talking animals in books are never really animals. They're humans disguised as...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue