I spoke with Tod Goldberg over meat sandwiches in the back section of the Bookfair. (The pulled pork is not bad, but is very, very messy. Recommended.)

Tod is the author of Living Dead Girl, finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, and is the director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Riverside’s Palm Desert Graduate Center. He will appear on the Saturday morning panel “Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi and Fantasy…Seriously,” which will look at genre fiction as a serious literary pursuit.

Question 1: What book have you read recently that you absolutely loved?

Tod Goldberg: Next: A Novel by James Hynes. Seriously. Everything literature should be. Just read it.

Question 2: What’s one piece of advice you wish you had been given when you were just starting out?

TG: You don’t deserve anything. Publishers are not waiting expectantly for you to send them your manuscript. It is all up to you, and you have to be willing to put in the work it takes to do it.

Question 3: (In self defense, this question was suggested by Tod, apparently because he really wanted to answer it.) What is one thing that can always found in your refrigerator?

TG: Slice-and-bake cookies. They’re delicious.