A: My wife is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and she has her office in the other end of this apartment. She's the director of training at the William Alanson White Institute on West 74th Street. The name she practices under is Dr. Janet O. Jeppson — that's her maiden name. It's Mrs. Asimov but Dr. Jeppson. She's also a writer. She's published a science fiction novel and a few short stories and has a mystery novel she's trying to sell.
Q: Do you stimulate her writing by your own work?
A: If anything, I inhibit it. She was a writer for years before she met me. If she weren't married to me, she would probably write more. In fact, I encourage her. But it's hard when your husband writes as fast as he can type and publishes everything he writes.
Q: Do you have any children?
A: Yes, I have two children by my first marriage — a boy 26 and a girl 22. He's working at a gas station and the girl is a senior at Boston College … . When she left home at 15, I said the only thing I ask of her was not to smoke. So she's done that. What else she does, I don't know, but she doesn't smoke.
Q: I realize that you are considered an authority in at least 20 branches of science. Have you ever done in original scientific research?
Q: I am still assistant professor of biochemistry at Boston University, though I no longer teach. Yes, I did original research from 1946 to 1958 … . I could not with honesty say I accomplished anything of importance. I am not a first-rank researcher — perhaps not even a second-rank researcher. It surprised me too. I found that my heart was in writing.
Q: Where do you go for vacation?
A: I don't go on vacation really. I sometimes go off to do a talk and I try to make that a little vacation. I work. In the last seven years there has been only one time — two days in June of 1975 — that I didn't do a talk. And even then I took some paper with me and worked on a murder mystery. You see, a vacation is doing what you want to do and to stop doing what you have to do … . But I like what I do, so I'm on vacation 365 days a year. If I had to play volleyball, fish, etcetera, that would be real work. In fact, the IRS can't believe I don't take vacations. If they can figure out how to write one book a month and still take vacations … . I do travel, although I never fly. Last year I crossed the ocean on the QEII without stopping. But, I gave two talks each way and I wrote a book.
Q: Since you live week three blocks of Lincoln Center, do you attend the performing arts?