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The question

Which writers or artists have most influenced your work?

Originally asked

The Paris Review, to novelists and poets, The Art of Fiction

A durable Art of Fiction question asked through named literary influences and artistic models.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

David McCullough

Historian and biographer; twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
We had the classics, published by Scribners, all the great stories by Robert Louis Stevenson and the rest which were illustrated by the great N.C. Wyeth. In those days, when childhood diseases were extended, you were home with the measles or mumps or chicken pox for two or three weeks at a time, and you were supposed to stay in bed. There wasn’t any television, there wasn’t much to do, so I would stare at those paintings in those books by the hour. I didn’t read them all. I loved to just look at those pictures and study every detail. I could sit down and draw most of those pictures right now without having to refresh my memory because they were so exciting to me.

Academy of Achievement interview, Williamsburg, Virginia, 3 June 1995 source ↗

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Sarah Paulson Actor; Emmy and Golden Globe winner
Well, my mom had me at 22 and my sister at 24. When I think about her trying to raise these two young girls in Manhattan, having grown up in an incredibly conservative family and her having a more progressive calling for a more liberal life… It was my mother’s bravery, and my mother’s pursuit of her creative life that made it possible for me to have the one I currently have.
Recorded The Talks, published interview, 30 September 2020 source ↗
George Lucas Filmmaker; creator of Star Wars and founder of Lucasfilm
I liked all the normal kinds of adventure books, Kidnapped, Treasure Island, Huck Finn sorts of things. I loved Swiss Family Robinson and that whole period of South Sea adventure movies. I liked westerns. Westerns were very big when I was growing up. When we finally got a television there was a whole run of westerns on television. John Wayne films, directed by John Ford, before I knew who John Ford was. I think those were very influential in my enjoyment of movies.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Washington, D.C., 19 June 1999 source ↗
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D. Historian and biographer of American presidents
When I was in high school, there was a book by James MacGregor Burns, a wonderful historian, called The Lion and the Fox, about FDR. And it was about his personality, his character, his early years in Hyde Park, his polio experience and… I remember that so vividly as the first real, live history book that I love so much. And I later met him, and have gotten to know him as a colleague, and he’s about 30 years older than I am, and I couldn’t wait to tell him, “You were the one who made it happen.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Sun Valley, Idaho, 28 June 1996 source ↗
Philip Johnson Architect; first winner of the Pritzker Prize
Only Mies influenced me. Le Corbusier I met. He was a nasty man, but obviously a genius. You don’t have to like the people just because they’re geniuses. Mies and I got along better and we became pretty close. I worked with him on his greatest building here, the Seagram building, which was kind of fun, but again, you can’t be a hero-worshipper and be an uncommon architect; you’ve got to be your own man. So I split with Mies and did a different kind of work.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, New York, New York, 28 February 1992 source ↗

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