Jane G asked Catharine Riggs:

Which authors to you feel have had the greatest influence on your writing?

Catharine Riggs Wow! I have no idea where to begin. Picture books? Charlotte’s Web? Stuart Little? Every Nancy Drew mystery ever written? My Victoria Holt phase? Or when I got snobby and only read the classics and somehow learned to love Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bronte and Wharton? My passion for short stories by Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, Tillie Olsen and Ellen Gilchrist? My love for William Styron’s novels, especially Sophie’s Choice. How about Cormac McCarthy’s The Road which I’ve read multiple times? But I suppose when it comes to suspense there are two authors that top my list: Patricia Highsmith and Daphne du Maurier. Patricia Highsmith was so talented she wrote a short story about a killer snail that spooked me for days. And Daphne du Maurier’s short story, The Birds, runs rings around Hitchcock’s film adaptation. I could go on and on but if I do I’ll never get back to my latest read.

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