Short stories are wonderful and extremely challenging, and the joy of them, because it only takes me three or four months to write, I can take more risks with them. It's just less of your life invested.

I guess you could say I've been writing all my life.

In our memories the stories of our lives defy chronology, resist transcription: past ambushes present, and future hurries into history.

I always told my dad I'd play professional football.

I found my first novel difficult. I don't want to make it sound like it's any more difficult than driving a cab or going to any other job, but there are so many opportunities for self-doubt, that you just kind of need to soldier on.

Short stories are wonderful and extremely challenging, and the joy of them, because it only takes me three or four months to write, I can take more risks with them. It's just less of your life invested.

So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?