Okay, Gwenda and Kij started this journal interview game thang, and I guess I'm playing now. These are Gwenda's questions and my answers.

1. What is the strangest or most wonderful thing you've ever seen in the woods, and why?

This is actually a softball, folks, because she knows the answer to this one. A couple of years ago I was fencing in a hollow at the back of my family's farm in Adair County. Fencing, in this case, is an activity that involves pliers and barbed wire, not foils and masks. There was some noise in the underbrush, and then a wild boar shot out from its hiding place and tore deeper into the woods. This story was met with much derision by my family members, since boars don't live in Kentucky. Later that day, I took my camera into the woods and managed to snap a couple of bleary photographs of the boar and its mate, providing clear proof to anyone with the imagination to see it. Later, we found out that somebody from up on the Ridge was rumored to have trucked in a dozen breeding pairs of wild hogs from Arkansas and released them around the county. I also photographed a bear track as big across as my hand that day.

2. What was the first story you ever wrote (not necessarily as an adult), and why did you write it?

The first story I remember writing (and illustrating) was actually an alternate history piece, though I didn't know that at the time. At about age 6, I gifted the world with "Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie Win the Battle of the Alamo." See, it was even jingoistic, in the best Alternate History tradition. And speaking of jingoism...

3. What is the thing that people think about the South that is most ridiculous in your opinion?

The assumption of homogeneity. Almost all the other bullshit misperceptions stem from that.

4. If you could only eat one food for the next month, what would you pick?

Nutter Butters! No, wait, pizza. If I say pizza can I change up the toppings once in awhile? Does that count? Also, Diet Coke. And George T. Stagg in moderation.

5. We already know how you met, but how did you know Gwenda was the one? (define "the one" however you'd like for the purposes of this question; hey, I had to answer it

Okay, the initial attraction was to your whip sharp mind plus, y'know, va-voom. But sealing the deal we had the facts that you owned Elvissey in hardcover, that you had more comics than I did (at the time), that you immediately recognized George Rowe the Dog as one of the top all time dogs, and that you made, and make, me want to burn as bright as you do.

And it says here I have to include these...

RULES:
1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.