But the only rhyme he could summon for 'out' was 'sauerkraut,' which lacked poetic glory. He let it go. The right line would come in time. That was the thing about poetry. It crept up through the draws and coulees of the brain.

I find it satisfying and intellectually stimulating to work with the intensity, brevity, balance and word play of the short story.

Their silence comfortable. Something unfolding. But what? Not love, which wrenched and wounded. Not love, which came only once.

In a rough way the short story writer is to the novelist as a cabinetmaker is to a house carpenter.

I think it's important to leave spaces in a story for readers to fill in from their own experience.

Change itself is what fascinates me. I am drawn, as a moth to the flame, by edge situations, by situations of metamorphosis.

And I think that's important, to know how the water's gone over the dam before you start to describe it. It helps to have been over the dam yourself.