Mary Helen Specht

4 mins read
Novelist Mary Helen Specht, phtoograph by Matt Valentine

Where I’m Coming From

Compiled by Forrest Preece

Fast Twelve Questions with Mary Helen Specht, Author

Mary Helen’s debut novel, Migratory Animals was an editors' choice by the New York Times Book Review and also won the Texas Institute of Letters Best First Fiction Award and the Writers' League of Texas work of Best Fiction. Her next novel, Mudlark, will be released in 2026 by Ballantine.

  1. What’s something about you that not many people know?

I sometimes wear toe spacers to facilitate immortality. I am a poor speller. And I prefer to nap on the floor so I won’t sleep too long.

  1. What was your first job?

I waited tables at Chili’s Restaurant. I was not very good. I was a vegetarian at the time and so I mostly made up my recommendations when people asked what dishes were the best. (Always a fiction writer, I guess.)

  1. If you could have dinner with three people – dead or alive, at any time in history—who would they be?

Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, and Eva Hesse. I mean, what in the world would we talk about? Maybe everything. The important thing is that Wilde shares the au gratin potatoes with the rest of us. I had to kick him out of my last imaginary celebrity dinner party.

  1. If you had to pick three musicians for a playlist, who would they be? 

Kate Bush, Shakira, Nina Simone.

  1. Favorite book and TV show?

Impossible question! I have absolutely no idea! The most recent novels I loved were Short War by Lily Meyer and The Last Language by Jennifer duBois and, as for recent television show, probably Silo because I’m a sucker for power dynamics in a bunker situation. I also liked The Diplomat a lot.

  1. Most powerful movie you have seen.

Beasts of the Southern Wild. It’s a gorgeous, life-changing film. Plus, there is a character named Hushpuppy.

  1. Favorite place in Austin? 

I can’t tell you because I don’t want too many people to know. But I also love the Elisabet Ney museum in Hyde Park. It's so funky and wonderful, and I like imagining what her life was like there. I love riding around town on the bus and just watching everything go by.

  1. Favorite restaurant and watering hole

I have a daughter who loves Curra’s and Asti and refuses to go anywhere else. I love those two places, but I am looking for recommendations. Watering hole? The closest I get to a watering hole these days is taking a glass of wine into the bathroom and putting on my headphones until someone knocks and kicks me out.

  1. What did you want to be when you were growing up?

I wanted to be an astronomer until I learned you had to be good at math.

  1. Which living person do you most admire?

My partner, Tyler.

  1. What makes you happy?

Smoothies made with dignity. Reading a good book under a good tree in a good hammock.

  1. Best advice you ever received?

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor. And always check your boots for scorpions.

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