Getting 2 Know Kevin Patterson

What is your favourite thing about writing?

When it goes really really well, and by that I mean about 1% of the time, it feels like a I am a transcriptionist, listening to people talking and watching them live their lives, while retaining the ability to nudge them in certain directions. That feeling never lasts for more than a few minutes, but when it does it is pretty fine. That’s the least boring thing one can do. Which is good, because there are plenty of tedious parts about getting a book ready for publication.

What’s the best decision you’ve ever made, and why?

I bought my sailboat impetuously, when I was 29. It was a crazy thing to do—I knew next to nothing about boats. But sometimes those marriages-after-a-weekend-together situations work out. Not mostly, not often, but sometimes. And when they do, those people generally end up believing in cosmic destiny, I’ll bet. Which is how I think about my forty-year-old concrete sailboat.