Interview with Courtney Zoffness

What are some things you would want to find?

The single socks that disappeared into my dryer. (Where have you gone?) Also, my six-year-old, who loves a good game of hide-and-seek and will commit to his hiding spot for an hour. It’s amazing how he keeps discovering new places to disappear in our two-bedroom apartment.

What are some things you would want to hide? 

Hiding makes me think of secrecy, and I’m not the biggest fan of secrecy, as I elucidate in Spilt Milk. As such, it’s hard to think of anything I’d like to hide! That said, I can think of many things I like to make disappear forever, including various systems of oppression and many a politician…

If you could choose anywhere in the world for your book to be hidden, where would it be?

I’d like it to be mis-shelved in the New York Public Library, and for an unlikely reader—someone looking for a vastly different kind of text—to happen upon it, and for said reader to open it up and give it a chance.

If you could find any book, which would it be and why?

My original copy of The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood. I bought it at a second-hand bookshop in London in 1999 and filled the margins with scribbles and exclamations. I’m pretty sure it was left behind at an ex-boyfriend’s. It’s probably collecting dust at Goodwill.

Who would you want to find your book (another author, celebrity, et cetera)?

I’ve convinced myself that Natalie Portman would connect with this book. Maybe saying this aloud will make it happen?