I Did Feel When My Mother Died

Everyone Said, 'well, You're Very Old For A First Novel,' And I Said, 'how Do You Write When You Haven't Lived? How Do You Write When You Have No Experience? How Do You Write Straight Out Of University?

As I Watch, The Sky Fills With Clouds Of Snow Feathers From Every Kind Of Bird There Ever Was And Even Some That Only Exist In The Imagination, Like The Bluebirds That Fly Over The Rainbow.

Oh, God. What Was Happening To Her, She Was Turning Into A Normal Person.

My Father Was An Autodidact. It Wasn't A Middle-class House. Shopkeepers Are Aspirant. He Paid For Me To Go To Private School. He Was Denied An Education - He Had A Horrible Childhood. He Got A Place At A Grammar School And Wasn't Allowed To Go.

I Spent Four Years Doing A Doctorate In Postmodern American Literature. I Can Recognize It When I See It.