BEST AUTHOR BEST : MAGGIE SMITH [2]

.-  What's the last book that made you furious?

Abi Maxwell's memoir, '' One Day I'll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman,'' made me furious on behalf of her and her child.

It also made me cry and laugh. I read the galley and promptly gave it to a neighbor who has a trans child.

.-  Describe your ideal reading experience.

I love having uninterrupted time so I can read a whole book in one sitting. My best reading [ and writing ] happens in a cabin in the woods in southern Ohio, where I've been going for 22 years now.

It's my happy quiet place, with a fireplace, comfy reading chair and absolute darkness outside - and no calls, no emails, no kids asking for meals or rides, no dog staring at me for a walk, no dryer buzzing in the basement.

.-  What do you read when you're working on a book? What kind of reading do you avoid?

I'm always reading poetry, regardless of what I'm working on, but I also tend to read more in the genre of my current project.

I don't avoid anything, because I don't subscribe to the idea that reading novels will infect your novel,  or that reading essays will infect your essays.

.-  What's the last book you recommended to a member of your family?

I recommended '' When My Brother Was an Aztec,'' by Natalie Diaz, to my teenage daughter, who asked me about Native poets.

I then bought her a copy of her own, so I could keep mine to myself. I tend to write notes in the margins of my books, so I prefer not to lend them out.

.-  You're organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

Clarice Lispector, Toni Morrison and Wislawa Szymborska. I'd be happy to cook, then sit down and just listen.

.-  You've said that seeing your poem '' Good Bones '' go viral '' exploded '' your life in many ways. Now, almost 10 years later, how are you thinking about that moment?

On the timeline of my life, there is before '' Good Bones '' [ BGB ] and after '' Good Bones '' [ AGB ], much like there is before the divorce [ BD ] and after the divorce [ AD ].

Despite the mess of that experience [ so much shrapnel ! ]  I'm grateful to be living in the AGB/AD era.

I'm at peace with all of it now.

The World Students Society thanks The New York Times.