PAUL LISICKY is the author of Lawnboy and Famous Builder.
His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Short Takes, Open
House, Boulevard, Flash Fiction, and many other anthologies
and magazines. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop,
he's the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for
the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the
Henfield Foundation, the New Jersey State Council on the
Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where
he was twice a fellow. He lives in New York City, and has
taught at Cornell University, NYU, Sarah Lawrence College,
Antioch University-Los Angeles, The University of Houston,
and The Bread Loaf Writers Conference. A new novel, Lumina
Harbor, is forthcoming.
Brief Interview with Paul Lisicky
Since we’re currently in the throes of winter, describe your version of summer in several fragments:
Laughing gulls and song sparrows... The smell of water from a garden hose... Day lilies and leaves... Sex... A slice of ripe tomato with salt... Sun and air on bare arms....
Breakfast or brunch, and if you could eat anything without consequence, what would you have?
Breakfast because I tend to get up early, so I can get to my desk. As for eating, I'd have to say anything chocolate, especially Junior Mints, but definitely not for breakfast.
What are your favorite songs to drive to?
Radiohead's "Jigsaw Falling Into Place," The Smiths' "Headmaster Ritual," and any of the songs on Joni Mitchell's HEJIRA.
Tell us about the last time you remember laughing really hard?
All the way through the first half of Robert Altman's THREE WOMEN. I just watched it last night.
If you could wake up anywhere in the world tomorrow, where would it be?
The Standard Hotel in Miami Beach, which is the reconstituted Lido Spa. I think of it as part monastery, part glamorous sanitarium. And they have the most perfect beds.