“William Maxwell's my favorite North American writer, I think. And an Irish writer who used to write for 'The New Yorker' called Maeve Brennan, and Mary Lavin, another Irish writer. There were a lot of writers that I found in 'The New Yorker' in the Fifties who wrote about the same type of material I did - about emotions and places.”

Canadian short story writer, Nobel Prize in Literature

Alice Munro was a Canadian short story writer, best known for her formally intricate fiction and for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Her stories often move back and forth across time, with closely linked cycles that build into a larger whole. She is widely associated with the short story form, and her work is noted for its careful structure and layered sense of memory.