I've always wrestled with the difference between plot and structure, and after re-reading a lot of writing books I realized I wasn't alone.
Literary influences are harder for me to point to, because mostly it's a mulch of all of my past reading.
If the reader enters a kind of immersive experience reading a book, then I have to enter a kind of immersive state to do my best work.
My parents read to me a lot as a kid, and I started writing very early, probably spurred on by Aesop's fables. Then they gave me The Lord of the Rings way too early for me to fully understand what I was reading, which was actually kind of cool. It was almost better - comprehension's overrated when you're reading.
The stories in Get In Trouble confirm once again that Kelly Link is a modern virtuoso of the form-playful and subversive required reading for anyone who loves short fiction.
