Maybe Love, Like Suffering, Is Relative.

There Are All Kinds Of Strange Threads In American Culture, And Places Where Sympathy Is Extended And Places Where It Isn't, And Places Where Outrage Is Extended And Places Where It's Not. It's This Constantly Shifting Barrel Of Eels.

Writing A Short Story Is A Little Like Walking Into A Dark Room, Finding A Light And Turning It On. The Light Is The End Of The Story.

For The Last Few Years I've Tried To Force Myself To Write At Least One Page Every Day, Which Doesn't Sound Like Much But It's Actually Pretty Hard To Manage. Because I'm Not Allowed To Do A Make-up Day. I Can't Do Two Pages The Next Day. The Punishment For Not Completing My Page Is That I Have To Eat A Vegetarian Meal The Next Day.

You Can Recognize In Your Own Reading Habits What Writers Are Doing That Works And What Doesn't. I'm Becoming Much More Aware Of That After Reading A Decade Of Student Stories.

I Read A Lot, But At The Same Time I'm Not A Particularly Good Or Diligent Or Discriminating Reader. I Go Through Maybe Close To A Thousand Or More Books A Year, But A Lot Of Times I'll Only Read Bits And Pieces Of Any One Individual Text.