Belle Boggs grew up in rural Virginia and is a writer and teacher. Mattaponi Queen, her first book, won the 2009 Bakeless Prize in Fiction; Graywolf is publishing it this month. Stories from the collection have appeared in the Paris Review, Glimmer Train, Five Chapters, storySouth and At Length. She lives in Chatham County, N.C.
On your nightstand now:
Q Road by Bonnie Jo Campbell, The Known World by Edward P. Jones (rereading slowly), Third Mind: Creative Writing Through Visual Art (a book of essays from Teachers and Writers Collaborative), Coming Out of the Woods by Wallace Kaufman (about a 1970s "hippie town" development near my house in Chatham County), Man of Constant Sorrow by Dr. Ralph Stanley, The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. My grandmother gave me a beautiful leatherbound edition that I read and reread, and my mom would tell me about how she and her cousins would act out the scenes when she was little. I didn't have any girl cousins nearby, but I did have a complete set of Little Women Madame Alexander dolls.
Your top five authors:
Edward P. Jones, Flannery O'Connor, Richard Yates, William Maxwell and Alice Munro.
Book you've faked reading:
The Bible. My best friend in elementary school was an expert on this book, and was always using it to predict people's damnation (including mine). With my minimal knowledge, I tried to rebut her claims and predictions. 
Book you're an evangelist for:
I'm always telling people they should read The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer, but a lot of people are put off by the length. My personal goal is to entice a high school student to read it next year.
Book you've bought for the cover:
I am an admirer of book covers, but I don't think I've bought a book for only that reason. I did buy Barry Moser's The Holy Bible for the pictures.
Book that changed your life:
I read Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family the year before I joined the New York City Teaching Fellows program.
Favorite line from a book:
"First, try to be something, anything, else." --from "How to Become a Writer" by Lorrie Moore, in Self-Help
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell. It's just a perfect book.
