What are your favorite books about Vermont? About Wyoming?

The Vermont writer Rowland E. Robinson’s orthography, tortured to reproduce the Vermont argot of 19th-century farmers and refugee French Canadians, still fascinates me, and I like his stories. For me the best Wyoming books are old journals and diaries by soldiers stationed at the various Wyoming forts, and photographs without text.

Tell us about your favorite short story writers.

When I was in my teens I liked the stories of Ring Lardner and W. Somerset Maugham — and Katherine Anne Porter. In my 20s I enjoyed translated Japanese short fiction, especially the creepy stories of Edogawa Rampo; all of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Today I very much admire the short stories of Ha Jin, Tim Gautreaux, the smart stories of Pritchett and the empathetic work of Alice Munro.

What moves you most in a work of literature?

Extraordinary sentences, flashes of fresh perception, a carefully constructed edifice with deep meaning.

Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine? Your favorite antihero or villain?

None of the above.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

Omnivorous reader. Early on began reading adult books alongside “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Jungle Books,” “Treasure Island” and the Bobbsey Twins; Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s “Understood Betsy.” Read Jack London’s “Before Adam” when I was 8, greatly moved by the anger and bullying of Red-Eye; was given a copy of “One Life, One Kopeck” when I was 9 or 10, understood only that Russia was awful and that a kopeck was less than a penny. My grandmother gave me a first edition of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” which over the years I ruined with reading and careless treatment until it was lost.

Which book did you hate reading as a student?

I didn’t hate any books during student years except perhaps — almost — Cicero’s letters and Caesar’s “Gallic Wars.” I was fortunate to have been a student before “To Kill a Mockingbird” was obligatory reading for anyone who could hold a book.