Sloane Crosley

Sloane Crosley

Sloane Crosley, the author of I Was Told There'd Be Cake on why she won't be going to Alton Towers anytime soon...

1. When were you happiest?

I’m sure the actual answer involves a foreign country but right now I’m thinking of this summer when I was reading and in a hammock and drinking a cocktail.

2. What is your principal defect?

I tend to take what other people say at face value and am invariably shocked when they don’t take their own words seriously.

3. What makes you depressed?

Scrolling through my cell phone and sometimes feeling disconnected.

4. What do you most dislike about your appearance?

You can’t see my eyes when I smile because my cheeks get in the way. I’m also not a giant fan of my thighs, but who amongst us is a giant fan of their thighs?

5. What is your favourite word?

Vacillate.

6. What is your most unappealing habit?

Picking at my cuticles.

7. What is your favourite smell?

Lily of the valley and fresh tomato vines. But not together.

8. What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Smoking.

9. Who are your favourite writers?

Living? Don Delillo, Lorrie Moore, Joan Didion.

10. What is the worst job you've done?

Vacuuming mall carpeting.

11. What was your most embarrassing moment?

Forgetting a famous author’s name to his face three times in the same day.

12. When did you last cry, and why?

I welled up yesterday, re-reading David Foster Wallace.

13. What do you most value in you friends?

Loyalty. And alcohol tolerance.

14. What gift would you most like to possess?

Anything so major from Cartier, I’d have to overcome my embarrassment to wear it. Or mental telepathy.

15. What is your most treasured possession?

A very old, water-damaged edition of Dubliners with years of photos and memorabilia tucked into the front cover.

16. What is the worst thing anyone's said to you?

That I was impossible to really get to know because I make everyone think they know me.

17. If you could edit your past, what would you change?

I would have spent more time with my paternal grandmother.

18. If you could go back in time, where would you go?

Turn-of-the-century Paris.

19. What is your greatest fear?

Getting lost, roller coasters and unsupervised children with sticky lollypops. So…no amusement parks for me.

20. What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

No one will ever be as passionate about your failures or your successes as you are but compassion is reminding yourself that’s true for everyone.