In a Guardian "Q&A" interview feature, US author Kevin Powers discusses the books that have shaped his life and career, ahead of the publication of his new work, Children of the Wild. He reflects on formative reading experiences from childhood through to adulthood, tracing how various authors and works influenced his development as both a reader and a writer.

Powers cites Wilson Rawls's Where the Red Fern Grows as his earliest reading memory and Stephen King's The Stand as a childhood favourite, while Dylan Thomas's poetry sparked his own writing at 12 or 13. F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby made him want to become a writer, GK Chesterton's Orthodoxy reshaped his thinking in his 20s, and he persisted through David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest despite repeatedly wanting to give up. He rereads John Graves's Goodbye to a River annually, would avoid revisiting Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel, discovered Pär Lagerkvist's Barabbas later in life, and has just finished Claire Keegan's Foster.