I'm not first and foremost interested in story and the what-happens, but I'm interested in who's telling it and how they're telling it and the effects of whatever happened on the characters and the people.

I do feel that if you can write one good sentence and then another good sentence and then another, you end up with a good story.

What I think," Chatty says, "is that if a man loves a woman more than a woman loves a man, then they're even.

I meet a person, and in my mind I'm saying three minutes; I give you three minutes to show me the spark.

In my head there's a broken balcony I fall off of when I speak.

An idea might spark an essay, but never a story.

When the beer is gone, so are they -- flexing their cars on up the boulevard.