If you told people you were moving to Ohio, they wouldn't congratulate you. They'd say "OH WHY would you move there?" as if that was something that happened to you and you had to deal with.

I'd like to think of my self as not melancholic at all, I think I'm a pretty cheerful person, really.

There is something about Midwest in general, that has kind of an underdog quality.

The people are maybe still as aware of the differences but they are more accepting of it that what we saw in the 70s and 80s, but the undercurrent is still there. There are maybe no racial slurs anymore, no firecrackers in mailboxes, the distinction is much more subtle.

If you told people you were moving to Ohio, they wouldn't congratulate you. They'd say "OH WHY would you move there?" as if that was something that happened to you and you had to deal with.

When you mention to people growing up in Cleveland they bring up the river catching on fire, or LeBron James leaving, they have these references, but no one imagines ending up there.

The writer's job, after all, is not to dictate meaning, but to give the reader enough pieces to create his or her own satisfying meaning. The story is truly finished—and meaning is made—not when the author adds the last period, but when the reader enters the story and fills that little ambiguous space, completing the circuit, letting the power flow through.