Writer Waxes Poetic About Squirrels, Stacks

Creative writing professor Owen King, son of writer Stephen, shares his loves, his fears, and his strong dislike of bicycles.

If you could get rid of either all the pigeons or all the squirrels on campus, which would you pick?

Boy, that's a really hard one. I don't have a real bias against either, but if you force me to choose I would want to get rid of the squirrels. I feel like people take pigeons for granted. Also, I think the ultimate prank would be to get a bag full of squirrels and throw them into someone's dorm. But I strongly discourage that.

What are you afraid of?

I'm a really fearful pedestrian. I feel like there's a little bit of a karmic meter that you have living in New York as a pedestrian, and eventually you'll get down to zero and someone will kill you. The object is to get out of the city before that happens. I think I'm running pretty low, because I'm much more oblivious than most people.

What's your worst pedestrian experience?

I've been hit by a number of bicycles-it's actually happened to me three times. This guy hit me one time and broke a DVD that I was really looking forward to watching. I felt very bruised. Getting hit by a bike hurts more than you'd think it would.

Do you read your dad's books?

If your dad is a city planner, there's nothing that interests you less than traffic arteries and highway ramps or above-ground metros, so I would say that I was aware but not aware in the way that others generally were of his writing.

Shaken or stirred?

Stirred.

Where do you want to be when you're 50?

Alive. Also, not living in an ecosuit to ward off the elements.

What do you enjoy most about teaching?

I love how often students say something that gets me to think about fiction in a different way than I did before. I love the freshness of the perspectives. I really get a kick out of that.

What's your favorite architectural feature on campus?

The steps to the old library, just because I think the view is great and one time my first year here I stood there and watched Toby Maguire and Willem Dafoe do one of the early scenes in Spiderman. That was pretty exciting.

And your least favorite?

I'm not a fan of the stacks in the library. It just seems like a good place to get killed. I feel very exposed in those skinny little aisles and I feel like someone could just reach through a gap in the books and grab me when I'm down on my knees looking for something.

Did you know that "sex in the stacks" is a campus joke?

Er.

What's your favorite escape in the city?

There are a lot of dog runs in the city and I don't have a dog, so I like watching the dogs in Union Square. If you want to make a date out of it, you can watch dogs and then go to the City Bakery on 18th St.

And more importantly, what do you do to escape?

Writing is my escape.

What's your grand life plan?

I'm getting married in the spring and that's about as far ahead as I can see.