Good to Know
In our interview with Parks, we asked her to share three fun facts about herself. She replied:
1. Yes, my hair is real -- I grew it myself.
2. I went to secretarial school to learn how to type.
3. I'm a yoga devotee.
More about Parks:
Her first feature film was 1996's Girl 6, directed by Spike Lee.
She lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband, blues musician Paul Scher, and their pit bull, Lambchop.
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Interview
In the spring of 2003, Suzan-Lori Parks took some time out to answer some of our questions.
What was the book that most influenced your life?
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.
What are your favorite books of all time?
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Beloved by Toni Morrison
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
Favorite films?
I love beautiful black-and-white movies -- anything Bette Davis, especially Now, Voyager; Casablanca; Mildred Pierce; anything by Orson Welles, Truffaut, or Godard; and Paper Moon by Peter Bogdanovich.
Favorite music?
Muddy Waters; Willie Nelson
If you had a book club, what would it be reading -- and why?
Getting Mother's Body -- because I could lead the discussion.
What are your favorite books to give -- and get -- as gifts?
I like to give and get basically anything (I love to read) but especially fiction and poetry.
Who are your favorite writers, and what makes their writing special?
Shakespeare (as well as those on the list above).
What are you working on now?
Screenplay adaptations of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison's Paradise for Harpo Productions, as well as the book for the new Disney musical Hoopz, about the Harlem Globetrotters. Among many, many other things!
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