I've worked in several different places, most of my experience comes from spending eight summers at a camp for adults with a wide range of disabilities. For six years I spent every summer living in a small cabin with five men with Downes Syndrome. It was just me and these five guys, all in their forties and fifties. We had such a great time.

Sometimes the autobiographical link in each story is very literal, like I did work at The Texas School for the Blind, and I did once lose a mattress out of the back of a friend's truck.

I know that some of the things which happen in these stories are not likely, but sometimes I wonder if they are not possible in some way.

I have two dogs myself and they are always around when I write, so they tend to creep in there.

I write most of my first drafts on an old manual typewriter, a really old one. It's a big black metal "Woodstock" from about 1920. I try to write everything down at once, in one sitting. The longer stories in this collection are divided up into sections. Each section represents a different sitting, a different idea for the same story.

I never really set out to research any of these stories. I try to lead an interesting life though. I guess the closest I came to research was when I applied to work at the state mental institution in Austin, TX. I wanted to work the night shift like Ken Kesey did when he wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I thought that might inspire me to write a book that great.

I'm trying to write stories that are interesting and enjoyable.