Fanny Howe responded to Twenty Questions in June 2025. She died the following month. Divided Publishing published this tribute to her.
How much of your writing surprises you?
98 per cent.
What is the first thing you remember reading or being read to?
The most basic nursery rhymes: “Hey diddle diddle”. And Dick and Jane, those awful books for children.
Is there a particular sentence that has stayed with you throughout your life?
Howe wanted to come back to this question.
What is the most interesting item on your bookshelf?
I have a beautiful ceramic that I have brought with me everywhere since I was a child, of a girl on the back of a dog. There was a Victorian news story about a girl who was rescued by her own animal. And I carry that with me.
Have you ever regretted publishing something?
Yes I have. One story I wrote that came out in Ms. Magazine. A cruel story about a woman giving away a child she had adopted. The woman who it was based on was terribly hurt by my publishing that story. I will never be able to take it back.
Proust had madeleines. Which foods or meals trigger your memory?
Cream of wheat, it’s a kind of porridge. And peanuts. Especially peanuts at a zoo crushed by elephants. People throw them into the cage then elephants spend the day smashing peanut shells under their feet, and it gives a very strong smell, both animal and vegetable.
Have you had any notable experiences meeting authors you admire?
Samuel Beckett. And a woman named Sara Grant who was a nun who wrote a wonderful book called The Father Sure. I met her in Oxford at the Mother House. I was part of a group of eccentric seekers, British not American, who would meet to talk about religion and I found this writing by Sara Grant that was really mind-blowing. She was a pioneering nun who was living in India, active in interreligious dialogue, making a bridge between Catholics and Hindus.
Do you have a favourite bookshop?
Here in Cambridge it would be the Grolier.
How does distraction inform your writing?
I wonder what that means. If I go out for a walk, I have to keep stopping to look at little things and take note of them. Little things at the side of my way keep me alive and make me want to write them down.
What are you currently reading or watching?
Mostly the news, due to the world now. But I also read philosophy and some science: a man named David Bohm, a physicist, and I keep going back to him. Then back to the eighth century, when there was a sort of blast of mystical writing; it was all over Europe. There was one man in Ireland, a scholar who knew many languages, called Eriugena. The seas were a bit more open, explorers were stunned by what they were finding.
Who has influenced your writing?
I wonder if you mean a contemporary writer … James Joyce, Simone Weil, Giorgio Agamben. It is hard to take apart influence on writing or thought.
Which piece of music have you listened to the most in your life?
I have listened to a lot of Celtic music and probably High Church music. Handel can be seen that way.
Do your ideas form themselves in your head or on the page?
In my head.
What is the worst job you ever had?
A secretary in a charcoal factory in Richmond California.
If you could choose any piece of art to hang above your desk, what would it be?
I don’t know – I’ve got them all over my room. Maybe a painting by Jack B. Yeats, beautiful ocean and mountain landscapes in Ireland with wind.
What was your favourite text studied at school?
The Aeneid.
Which font do you write in?
12 point-Times New Roman.
What does a writing day look like for you?
Early mornings basically in bed. Or late afternoon taking a walk. It looks like time.
Which other art forms are necessary to your writing?
Music.
Where do you seek refuge?
In bed and in the graveyard next door.
Born in 1940 in Buffalo, New York, Fanny Howe was an author, poet and mystic. She was professor emerita in literature at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of more than fifty books of poetry and prose. Her novella Holy Smoke was published by Divided on December 1, 2025; her final book of poetry, This Poor Book, will be released in May 2026 (Divided).
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