I saw this quiz on About Last Night, and was the person who guessed the quote’s subject to be Eudora Welty, rather than its author. The e-mail I wrote said:

My first hunch for the subject of your passage was Eudora Welty. I felt somewhat doubtful, especially given her work in short stories. Then I thought of Francine Prose, but I just finished Reading like a Writer and read A Changed Man not long ago, and the passage didn’t quite seem to fit her writing.

Strange how two women writers sprung first to mind, especially given what I found via “tricks of the trade.”

(Hyperlink added)

Laura wrote back:

Interesting! It’s Eudora W writing about Jane Austen, but I’m fascinated that you guessed it was *about* Welty. Doesn’t that just lend itself beautifully to some theory that no matter the subject, a writer is always in some sense writing about herself too? I love that.

I do like the theory, and I’d guess a lot of writers have a certain inspiring writer who they would like to emulate, or at least live up to. Perhaps it’s the flipside of the ideal reader.