An Interview with Margot Adler
Provided by Amazon.com

Amazon.com: When and why did you begin writing? When did you first consider yourself a writer?

Margot: I began writing in my twenties. Before that, I wrote some terrible science fiction short stories, enough to realize that fiction was never going to be my road. When I got a contract to write "Drawing Down the Moon," I was terrified of the eternal nature of the written word. That's probably why my main career is in radio: in radio, thoughts go in one ear and out the other, and it's easy to forget. I find fiction incredibly difficult, perhaps that is why I became a journalist. "Heretic's Heart is very personal, but it is as factual as I know how to make it. Only recently have I been able to say "I am a writer" without feeling that there is a little voice inside saying, "No you're not!"

Amazon.com: Who or what has influenced your writing, and in what way? What books have most influenced your life?

Margot:: Science fiction has been very influential. It is the only literature of ideas that we have in America today. It is the only writing that seriously deals with the large cosmic questions of who we are, how differently could we live, love, work, create societies. It takes on the great philosophical, political and theological questions that most other writing avoids. Most literature that gets reviewed and praised in the New York Times Book Review and other such places seems to be about small things, personal relationships and such. So I was very influenced by the classic science fiction writers: Clarke, Sturgeon, Philip K Dick, Asimov, Olaf Stapleton, Ursula K. LeGuin, Samuel Delaney, and I could mention thirty other writers. Writings on political philosophy have also influenced my life. I majored in political theory at the University of California in Berkeley, and I was very influenced by Roszak, Marcuse, Mumford, Marx, DeTocqueville and others. Also the nature writers have been very important,including all the obvious ones, Carson, Dubos, Thoreau, Loren Eiseley,and many others.

Amazon.com: What are you reading now?

Margot: I just finished "The Family Tree" by Sherri Tepper, a truly amazing book, and again, it takes science fiction to truly deal with some of the deepest questions of our relationship to other animals, genetic engineering, etc.

Amazon.com: What are you working on?

Margot: Right now, I'm mostly living life. I have a full time job as a correspondent at national Public Radio, and I have a seven year old. I think I will soon begin at least thinking about working on a book that begins where "Heretic's Heart" left off, at the beginning of my spiritual journey into Paganism and Wicca. I am also working on several sermons dealing with the fate of the planet. Recently someone gave me the gift of this well known quote from E. B. White: "I arise every morning torn between the desire to save the world and the desire to savor the world. It makes it hard to plan the day." Since pondering this quote I have been giving several sermons and speeches on the idea of saving and savoring the earth.

Margot: One of the things I have noticed about both my books is that it is far easier having a book, like "Drawing Down the Moon" which is fueled by an entire movement and still remains the classic study of contemporary Paganism. "Heretic's Heart" is a much more personal book, and a more difficult book to sell in this culture, because of the culture wars that depict the 1960's as a time of excess and silliness. I hope the readers of "Drawing Down the Moon" will take a look at "Heretic's Heart" and begin to see the 1960's in a complex way. People are writing a lot of lies about the 1960's - this book is not "the truth", but it is one truth, and it's a much different portrait than most are painting.

Email Margot Adler at madler@npr.org

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