A lot of writers choose to live in New York, partly because of the literary culture here, and partly because Brooklyn's a pretty nice place to live. And a lot of writers who might not geographically reside in New York still point their ambitions towards New York in some sense.

The challenge for any fiction writer is that your job involves simply sitting at a desk for a very, very long time.

The effects of MFA programs, and the rise of creative writing instruction more generally, are far more diffuse than people think. Even if you're a writer who has avoided institutions your whole life, you're still going to be reading a lot of writers who have MFAs, and are affiliated with universities.

To my parents, writing seemed precarious and not the best idea.

I think that it is very interesting to write about a team because a team is a group of people who work in very close quarters and have very intense relationships so - in my days of playing sports, I was very rarely on a team that did not have it's own peculiar dynamic, and you wind up having very intense feelings for good and for bad about these people with whom you spend many hours a day.

Heat radiated off Henry's face. Salty snot ran down his upper lip. A majestic fart propelled him to the top of Section 12, just at the springing of the stadium's curve. He slapped the sign as if high-fiving a teammate. It gave back a game shudder. He was crusing now, darkness be damned, stripping off his sweatshirt and his long underwear top without breaking stride.

Poetry might be more about the eternal verities, the essence of the human soul, and - although it's reductive to say so - fiction has perhaps been more about the differences between the unconstrained world of the imagination and the realities you run into, day-to-day, when you're riding your donkey.