There seems to be a tremendous desire among many people now to know authors and how they work, to know what's autobiographical and what isn't.

Every once in a while someone says, 'You can't really learn anything, if you're really a writer then you wouldn't need to do it.' But I think what people need is the sense of not being alone. They go to MFA programs to be part of a community of people who care, and then you start caring about your friend who is trying to edit a magazine and your other friend who is stuck in the middle of her poem. There you have all kinds of things to worry about besides your own success.

Sometimes it's interesting to see what people who have too much control need to do to write freely.

I think that inevitably, the trouble our characters go through is a kind of metaphor for what's happening in ourselves.

The main thing is to explain to yourself that everybody suffers.

Being part of a community of writers is huge. I really think that's why people go to MFA programs.

I don't really like to tell people to get out drugs.