Photo courtesy of the author

What inspires author and professor Manuel Muñoz to keep writing and teaching? Here's a hint. It has something to do with Ada McGrath, Aretha Franklin, his mother and his grandmother.

Before heading off to Harvard (it was the only school he'd ever heard of) with only $100 dollars in his pocket, Manuel Muñoz grew up in Dinuba, California (population 21,000). Growing up in an agricultural town, meant that from the 4th grade on, he and his family worked in the fields picking grapes. Yes. There are still fields in America. After college, he enrolled at Cornell University were he graduated from the MFA program and went on to publish two short story collections. His story is precious: an emblem of an almost extinct "American Dream." In between finishing his third work of fiction (a novel) and his duties as faculty member at the University of Arizona, he took some time to answer our questions and give us a list of his favorite books.

What is your most distinct characteristic?
My flat, no-lilt repetition of phrases that I find strange and beguiling.

What quality do you most admire in others?
Gregariousness, but with a short leash.

What quality do you most value in your friends?
The ability to keep a secret.

What is your Achilles' Heel?
A particular ex from New York—his nickname is Cupcake for that very reason.

What is your idea of happiness?
I look forward to my haircuts because I find the sounds so relaxing: the click of the comb against the scissors, the hair being snipped away, etc.

What is your idea of misery?
The day I have to accept, with finality, that I’ll never have children.

What would you like to be?
I always wanted to be a backup singer.

Can you share a joke with us?
I like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog’s description of Fox News coverage: “”You swing farther to the right than Ann Coulter’s strap-on.”

In what country would you like to live?
Any place where I could get married to a man if I wanted to, without some religious f*ck harassing me about it.

Who is your favorite fictional character?
Ada McGrath, as played by Holly Hunter in The Piano.

Who is your favorite musician?
It’s a tie and always depends on the day I’m having: either Aretha Franklin or Nina Simone.

Who is your favorite artist?
The film director Robert Altman.

Who are your heroes in real life?
My mother and grandmother—they raised children more or less alone.

What historical figure do you admire?
Oseola McCarty, the Mississippi washerwoman who donated her life savings of about $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi, all to assist students in financial need.

What do you most dislike?
Attention hogs, dream whores, and cattiness as a thin mask for jealousy—ah, gay New York, how I miss you…

What historical figure do you most despise?
Larry Craig.

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
I wish I had excelled athletically. I like the feeling when my body briefly feels fleet, whether I’m playing tennis or running, and I envy professional athletes for their ability to transcend themselves when they’re executing at their very best.

How would you like to die?
It’s not the how, but the where: at home.

What is your present state of mind?
Contemplative (but it always is)

What is your motto?
“You first” (perfect, because that ‘you’ can mean you or me, depending)