A year or so ago, I was bloghopping and I ran across a really interesting thing on SarahHatter.com. It was a featured subpage on her site which it seems she’s abandoned but which struck me as a really cool idea: interviews conducted with her.

The reason the idea struck me as cool was because when you read someone’s blog, you know if get a sense that the person has this inordinate amount of control over what’s being put forward and what’s being kept back. Frankly, this may be why there are so many bloggers: it’s kind of the epitome of the American Dream: a space where the individual’s opinions are the most important thing in the world, but in which one’s own opinion is top and everyone else’s is a mere comment or, even, something kept off the page entirely.

But an interview can be challenging. An interview can force a person to face and answer questions he or she would rather not to have been asked. This is an interesting thing. Not that I think interviewers ought to pull out all the stops and attack someone, but I think a few cracks in the facade of the blogger could do a lot of us online writers some good.

So anyway, I’m commencing a new feature on my page. I plan on listing it differently soon, so that it’s more apparent what it is, and so on but for now the Interviews section and the first interview subpage are both available under the Static Pages section in the sidebar.

The first interview was actually conducted a year ago by the very patient and talented Laura of Oddunout.

The idea is that any reader is welcome to interview me, and if nobody steps forward to do it, I will request someone do so occasionally. While Laura’s interview was 20 questions long, subsequent ones could be shorter… or longer. They could be conducted on the phone, in person, via email, or even via internet chat. If you’re interested in conducting an interview, please leave a comment here and I’ll get back to you about it. But for now, have a look at the new interview content. And enjoy.