Sometimes Before People Know What They're Saying,

I Was A Fantastic Student Until Ten, And Then My Mind Began To Wander.

I Was Fortunate That By The Time I Was Born, There Were A Lot Of Comforts And At The Same Time I Lived In A Neighborhood Where It Was Brought To My Eyes Every Single Day That People Didn't Live Like Me. Every Day I Knew That Many Of My Friends "got Relief." That Was Important In My Thinking About The World, Thinking That Not Everybody Lived That Way.

When I Was About Twenty-one, I Published A Few Poems. Maybe I Wrote A Couple Of Stories Before, But I Really Began To Write Stories In My Mid-thirties. My Kids Were Still Little, And They Were In School And Day Care, And I Had Begun To Think A Lot About Wanting To Tell Some Stories And Not Being Able To Do It In Poetry.

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

I Didn't Write Any Fiction Until I Was Past Thirty.