The funny thing is, about the time I let go of any aspiration toward worldly success, that's about the time I started writing decent work.

I started publishing stories in small magazines early on, but after seven or eight or nine years you feel like you need a little more than that to show for your efforts.

If you could figure out how to live with family then you'd gone a long way toward finding your peace.

The Kessler Theater is one such gem, an Art Deco beauty … for a slice of real life, there’s always the Kessler.

You'd think family would be the one sure thing in life, the gimme? Points you got just for being born? So much thick, meaty stuff bound you to these people, so many interlocking spirals of history, genetics, common cause, and struggle that it should be the most basic of all drives, that you would strive to protect and love one another, yet this bond that should be the big no-brainer was in fact the hardest thing.

I realized I was never going to have any peace with myself unless I made an honest stab at trying to write.

Maybe the light's at the other end of the tunnel.