I Was A Fantastic Student Until Ten,

This Hill Crossed With Broken Pines And Maples Lumpy With The Burial Mounds Of Uprooted Hemlocks (hurricane Of '38) Out Of Their Rotting Hearts Generations Rise Trying Once More To Become The Forest Just Beyond Them Tall Enough To Be Called Trees In Their Youth Like Aspen A Bouquet Of Young Beech Is Gathered They Still Wear Last Summer's Leaves The Lightest Brown Almost Translucent How Their Stubbornness Has Decorated The Winter Woods.

There Is A Long Time In Me Between Knowing And Telling.

I Begin By Writing Paragraphs That Don’t Have An Immediate Relation To A Plot. The Sound Of The Story Comes First.

I Read A Lot. I Liked A Tremendous Number Of Poets And Writers. The Person Whose Work I Liked The Most Was Joyce.

My Family Were Russian Jews. They Got You To Read As Soon As You Could. And Then Assumed You Would Read A Lot. People Didn't Really Tell Stories But They Were Good Talkers. That's Important For A Writer, To Hear Speakers.