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Hi, Emmett,

I’ll try.

1) Background and life experience is everything. It determines what you find funny, or even if you do find anything funny. It determines your response to every situation that may come up. In essence, it determines who you are, and that absolutely affects what you write.

2) Not really, bcause they would have had to take place before the writing started, and that’s when I was 10 or 11 and woefully short on life experience.

3) What qualifies me to write about (sports, school, kids)? Not a thing, except having lived the part.

4) My literary influences are a) Kurt Vonnegut and b) Joseph Heller.  If my work ever even approached half of THE SIRENS OF TITAN, or CATCH 22, I would die content!

There. I answered (sort of) all of them. You have my permission to be shocked.

                                         Regards,                                                    —–Gordon Korman—–