Tiffany is one of the Wheels taking over Read.Write.Repeat! They are the graduating cohort in OSUC’s MFA program. You don’t want to miss what they have planned for their episode, which will air May 13th. In the meantime, check out what Tiffany has to say about some of her favorite books. You can read more about their project and the upcoming episodes here. Each of the Wheels responded to our Proustish Questionnaire, which will post every day between now and the 13th.
The Proustish Questionnaire
Q. If not yourself, which fictional character would you be?
- Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin, otherwise known as The Idiot, hands down.
Q. Who are your favorite heroine and hero from fiction?
- This is difficult…but I’m positive they both exist in Brothers Karamazov. Or wait…Pride and Prejudice–Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.
Q. If you could have dinner with any three authors, dead or alive, whom would you dine with?
- Dostoevsky, John Fowles and Ralph Waldo Emerson. I have no idea what I’d say, but I’d sure like to listen.
Q. Do you have a current or “forever” favorite book?
- My forever favorite is a three way tie between Anna Karenina, Emerson’s Complete Essays and Spinoza’s Ethics; so it’s complicated. My current favorite, as I’m writing this is Motherless Brooklyn…but a lot can change, I’ve got a pretty large stack of books sitting next to me at the moment. Dostoevsky lives on another plane…
Q. Which fictional character would you want to befriend?
- Well, if I couldn’t be him, I’d at least want to be his friend: Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin. If that feels like a copout, then…Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov because he’s complicated and intense and he’d break my heart but it would be an incredible heartbreaking.
Q. What villain from fiction do you love to hate?
- Snape, anyone who doesn’t say Snape, I don’t understand–though, he wasn’t really a villain so I’m not entirely sure it counts. I just loved, loved, loved Snape and prayed I was right to do so.
Q. Tell us about the books in your life that have fed your soul, brought you solace, pleasure, or joy, or eased your mind.
- Emerson’s Essays, I read them once a year and would not be the person I am today if it weren’t for reading them. I was fifteen the first time I read one of his essays, I don’t even remember which one it was–what I do remember is finishing it, walking straight up to my teacher’s desk and saying, “This, I need more like this.” I stole his complete essays from the library the very next day. Terrible, but true. I sent a check and an apology letter when I was thirty.
Q. If you could exist in any story world, which would you choose, and why?
- Oddly enough, probably Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I think I’d want to be Arthur Dent. Why? It would be like doing all the drugs without doing any. Am I allowed to say that here? Good grief. I hope you have an editor.
Meet Tiffany McFee
McFee is a fiction writer currently living in Corvallis Oregon. She is completing her MFA in Creative Writing through Oregon State University’s low-residency program and a founding editor of Townsend, a literary journal for long-form fiction.
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTDCates/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-mcfee-31b600120/
Juxtaposed
Bendrix Marshal is a man of meticulous nature whose life is turned upside down when he meets Eve Townsend while working for a traveling theatre group out of Glasgow. She struggles with addiction, a sense of belonging and has a hidden history of trauma that frequently makes her appear uninvested in doing what is ‘right’. As they both advertently and inadvertently cause destruction upon one another’s lives, Bendrix’s reality begins to unravel.
Bloody and holding the gun after Eve is found shot in her London home, Bendrix must help the Metropolitan Police piece together the last moments of her life. A web of lies and half-truths emerges so fully that none are left untouched, including the Chief Inspector.
Self-inflicted or not, of enormous consequences or mundane ones, as the lies are stripped away, one is forced to ask if the love of anything can exist amongst the truths that remain. Juxtaposed is written as a three-part narrative that shifts the reader from the investigation, to the mind of the suspect, to the sordid past and deepest fears of its victim.
Purchase your copy here:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/juxtaposed-t-d-cates/1123541706?ean=9781530531776
Tibetan Lemonade 
[…] Tiffany writes fiction and is a founding editor of Townsend, a literary journal for long-form fiction. Her novel, Juxtaposed, is written as a three-part narrative that shifts the reader from a murder investigation, to the mind of the suspect, to the sordid past and deepest fears of its victim. In her segment, Tiffany digs into what it’s like to live with a writer. […]
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