CONVERSATIONS WITH HUMANS: NIK PERRING

A weekly author Q&A series that folds back authors and breaks their spines. In the last of this current series, we question Nik Perring, whose collection of short stories Not So Perfect will be followed by Freaks!, co-written with Caroline Smailes, in spring next year. He is the headline act in this Thursday's unmissable Flash Mob Literary Salon for Chorlton Arts Festival.

Q. What's your 3rd favourite novel of all time? And why?

‘Dear Everybody’ by Michael Kimball, without question. And why? Because it’s brilliant.

Q. What is the longest conversation you've ever tried to have with an animal, and what was it about?

That would have been with a cat, I think. I was asking it why it wouldn’t talk. The cat was stubborn and the conversation, lengthy and one-sided.

Q. If your books could be printed on something other than paper, on what would you print them?

Tissue paper, so the reader’s tears of joy (despair) would have something suitable to fall on. And it could also be useful if they didn’t like my words.

Q. Let's have a Madchester-style revival but for fiction writers instead. Who gets to be Bez?

Well, I would say me, but I can’t dance. So, let’s see. Someone iconic, someone important and someone fun. I’m going to say István Örkény, because I bloody love his Café Niagara story.

Q. What's the best colour for a book cover? No, really. I like red.

Blue. Mine’s blue. So blue, without question. Definitely blue, so long as it’s that particular shade. If not, then black. With yellow on it. Like Slaughterhouse 5, because that’s ace. Red’s nice too.

Q. Plug any current book or project you're working on: please use as many long words as you can.

Long words? I’m not sure how many I know.

Well I’d like to espouse the acquisition, by as many bibliophiles, or non-bibliophiles as possible, of my monograph of short fictions, entitled, consummately appropriately, Not So Perfect (Roast Books), and also encourage the acquisition, around the vernal equinox of 2011of a differing compendium, namely, Freaks! (The Friday Project – HarperCollins), which I have co-authored with fictionist, Caroline Smailes.

In other words: I would like to plug my short story collection, ‘Not So Perfect,’ and also Freaks!, which is due out in spring next year, which I’ve co-written with Caroline Smailes and that’s been illustrated by Darren Craske.

Conversations With Humans will be back with a second series of interviews in a few months.