I always, at least back then, struggled with emotion in writing. I felt like I could do odd, unusual things, but there wouldn't be enough feeling in them, and maybe if there's a progression at all to anything that I've done it's that I've always wanted to have a high - an almost overwhelming - degree of feeling in what I write.

When I started writing at 18 or 19, I had a fear of anything autobiographical, but I've come to realise that my writing is very autobiographical at the emotional level.

Fiction becomes a place where I face certain fears such as losing language or losing my children.

Rain is used as white noise when God is disgusted by too much prayer, when the sky is stuffed to bursting with the noise of what people need.

Among other things, autoimmune disorders are an induction into a world of unstable information and no reliable expertise.

Spelling is a way to make words safe, at least for now, until another technology appears to soften attacks launched from the mouth.

Teaching is all armchair. I learn about writing by writing and thinking about what I've written and throwing it away.