Andrew Kaufman’s Magic 8 is too good not to share

Small Claims author Andrew Kaufman tackled the CBC Books Magic 8 Q&A, wherein he answered eight randomly selected questions submitted by eight fellow writers. Here’s an excerpt:

1. Matti Friedman asks, “If you could go somewhere on earth right now, where would it be?”

Zipolite, Mexico. But not the Zipolite of now — the Zipolite of 1993. I was sent there by a beautiful woman who’d just broken my heart as a place to recover. It was a backpacker’s paradise back then. I stayed at Gloria’s, off the beach where we all lived in hammocks and smoked Tigre cigarettes, which made us feel authentic even though we were just tourists trying to convince each other that we were artists. Or at least that we would be soon.

2. Ausma Zehanat Khan asks, “If you discovered a terrible secret about someone that you knew would make for an exceptional story, would you make use of it? Would you tweak it to protect the person’s identity if you knew that weakened the story?”

I’d use it as is. In my experience, people rarely recognize themselves when I base characters on them. Even if I think it’s a one-to-one knock off, they will invariably decide that it’s another character that’s based on them.

3. Rajiv Surendra asks, “Is there a book that you wish you had never read? Explain. Please. Thanks.”

To read Kaufman’s next answer and the rest of the Q&A, head on over here to CBC Books.