It's quite a feeling to finish something you have been 10 years beholden to and to have a clean slate.

For many years I didn't have health insurance.

The novel has always been the form that incorporates other forms. For me, it has always been the ultimate medium.

Somehow, you can achieve a directness in the novel that you can't get anywhere else.

You know, it's sort of common wisdom among New York publishers that short story collections don't make money.

There are things you do when you're writing that are so fun to do it's almost like they're private jokes that are amusing to you but no one else is going to enjoy them nearly as much and you worry you're going to have to take them out in the end.