"To Kill a Mocking-Bird" turns 50 this year, and Harper Lee speaks ...

... but not about To Kill A Mocking-Bird! The reclusive Harper Lee has granted an interview request! For more, follow this Guardian link. I cannot tell you the ways in which I love this book. It came to me at an impressionable age, and has never left me. Harper Lee has not written another word, as she said once, "I didn't expect the book to sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of reviewers but at the same time I sort of hoped that maybe someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected."

If all she had to say was contained in this one jewel of a book, then that is enough for me. As a reader, I am grateful for this book. As a writer, I feel about Harper Lee what Chekhov said about Tolstoy, that reading him makes you feel that it is fine if you do not succeed as a writer because Tolstoy succeeds for you. Sniffle.