the bookshelf diaries: emma marie jones
The Bookshelf Diaries takes a peek into the reading life of writers, readers and book lovers. Today we chat to writer Emma Marie Jones.
What are you reading right now?
I just started Virginia Woolf’s The Waves for like the third time, because it is 100% perfect. Before that I just finished HollyChilds’ No Limit, which was wild and smart and funny.
What was your favourite book as a teenager?
I have this copy of Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything that I was given when I was about 14 or 15. It’s about five young women working for a publishing company in New York in the 1950s. It’s like a wholesome Valley of the Dolls.
Have you ever met a favourite author?
Once I thought I got a tweet favourited by J. K. Rowling, but it was just a fake J. K. Rowling spambot and I was so disappointed.
What have you recently read that was un-putdownable?
I recently read this year’s Miles Franklin winner, Evie Wyld’s All The Birds, Singing. I did that thing where you get up to the last couple of chapters and you just commit. I stayed up until about 3am to finish it.
What book makes you mad?
Oh, man, I don’t know. I’m a super flaky reader. If something doesn’t excite or enchant me, I’ll stop reading it and move on to something else. Lionel Shriver wrote a pretty spot-on little piece about how not to read for The Guardian that totally sums this up.
What’s in your to-read pile?
Lorelei Vashti’s memoir Dress, Memory and Margaret Atwood’s new collection of short stories, Stone Mattress.
Is there a writer that has influenced your writing?
Margaret Atwood is my homegirl. And Helen Garner, too. I could list hundreds of badass ladies here. Ursula Le Guin, Katherine Mansfield, Isabel Allende. During my undergrad a professor lent me her copy of Mary Fallon’s Working Hot, and it taught me that I could write about sex and my body unabashedly, crudely and poetically, all at the same time.
What do you read to feel inspired?
Reading the work of my friends and peers – local young and emerging writers – is a huge source of inspiration. Print and online journals like The Lifted Brow, Voiceworks, Seizure, Scum and Overland are full of all the good stuff.
Emma Marie Jones writes about sex, body and identity, and all the dirty bits in between. Find her at @emmacones.
