Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Writer: Lucinda Roy

Photo courtesy of Virginia Tech.

What is your go-to pen(cil)? The pen my beautiful husband and son gave me with my name engraved on it.

Most beautiful word in all the world: Courage.

Alter ego: Either Mary Poppins or Tina Turner. Often both at the same time. (I do a mean rendition of “Proud Mary” in the voice of Julie Andrews. Audiences have been gobsmacked by it. Or maybe they were appalled. It’s a toss-up.

What’s for dinner?  Leftovers. But African potato leaf stew is my favorite meal, along with British roast beef and Yorkshire pud. I’m a short-haul vegetarian and a would-be vegan with no willpower. After two years I forgot I was vegetarian and found myself snarfing down a Philly cheese steak at Busch Gardens. It was very embarrassing.

What’re you reading? Never Caught: The Washington’s Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar; Thrall poems by Natasha Trethewey; A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller; and Ropes, poems by Derrick Harriell.

Who is your most-recent writer crush?  Not sure I have crushes, but I admire too many writers to list.

Song lyrics stuck in your head, go: None right now, though I often find myself singing along with Black British songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae: “When you gonna realize you don’t have to try any longer…just go ahead let your hair down.”

You’re a new edition to the Crayola box. Congratulations. What is your new name? Very Disobedient Crayon.

What are you putting off? What am I not?

What was the last gift you gave someone? A dream.

What were you like as a college or graduate student? Just the same as I am now—disobedient.

Here’s your free ticket. Where are we going? Thanks! I see it allows layovers. So it’s Hawaii first (again), then New Zealand (again), then East Africa.

Optional doodle. I’m half British. I never doodle. It makes you go blind.

 

Lucinda Roy is a British-born writer. She completed her MFA at the University of Arkansas. She is a novelist, poet, memoirist, and professor of creative writing at Virginia Tech. She has published two novels, Lady Moses and The Hotel Alleluia, a memoir-critique, No Right To Remain Silent, and a collection of poems, The Hummingbirds.