PEN Member Joyce Carol Oates tells the NYT what book inspired her to write, what she’s reading now, and which writers she’s fantasized about meeting:

The author, most recently, of “Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You” and “Black Dahlia & White Rose” admits that she first found Walt Whitman disappointing: “Please don’t send contemptuous e-mails.”

(Source: The New York Times)