Memeber Snapshot: Lilith Wood

by Lilith Wood

Meet Lilith Wood; a well-read writergrrl with plenty of stories to tell.

Where do you get your news?

I jump around online. I look at the websites for both Seattle papers, plus the New York Times, the Juneau Empire and the Anchorage Daily News. Also, I have many savvy blogger-friends that call news-items to my attention. Oh, and I like public radio.

What's your order in a coffee shop?

I like white coffee, which you can’t get everywhere. It tastes different than regular espresso ... it’s milder. I get my white coffee mochas at Sureshot in the U-District.

If you knew you could not fail, what would you do?

I’d take the trans-Siberian railroad from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg, learn Russian, and begin work on the next great trans-boreal historical sci-fi novel about peat bogs. Then I’d turn it into a musical.

Where do you get your ideas for writing?

I grew up in a small town on an island in Southeast Alaska, so nothing else ever has to happen to me. My life can be totally bland from here on out, and I’ll still have plenty of stories to tell. But I eavesdrop on the bus everyday, just in case.

How did you learn about Writergrrls?

Lori Fromowitz told me about it. We used to bump into each other a lot in Ballard, before she defected to New Jersey. If you’re out there reading this, Lori, thanks for the tip.

Describe your writing routine.

Mostly I procrastinate and think up new ways to express how much I hate myself for not writing more.

What are you currently reading?

For non-fiction I’m reading Sick of Nature by David Gessner. It’s about writing and life. I’m not too far in, but so far I love his descriptions of himself flailing through his twenties, working retail and construction and feeling like a failure. For fiction I’m reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. Don’t get me started. I’m agog. My admiration of Murakami’s work washes away whatever sheepishness I have for remaining ignorant of him for so long.

What's your favorite book this week?

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle! Some of my other favorite books this week are Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf, Speak, Memory by Nabokov, Petersburg by Andrei Bely, and Happy Baby by Stephen Elliott.

What's your best quality?

I can relax.

What would you change about yourself?

I sometimes let opportunities slip away because of shyness and lack of gumption.

Where do you wish you could be?

Southeast Alaska in summer is heady stuff.

Who do you wish could be here?

I wish Willie Nelson would stop by, but he’s so busy. I wish my little sister would disentangle herself from California and run away with me. I’d let her bring her husband. Also I have a crush on a Brooklynite. So maybe, Willie Nelson, my little sister, her husband, my crush, a Rhodesian ridgeback, Beck, Haruki Murakami, and several of my all-time best girlfriends, on a boat in Southeast Alaska, on a sunny day, in our bathing suits, eating beer-battered halibut, and talking about the dreams we had the night before.

Lilith Wood is a twenty-something writer/editor/radio type with a biology degree, delusions of grandeur, and a tricky double case of wanderlust and homesickness.