I've never been able to sleep very much, even when I was a kid. I used to hate being forced to lay in bed in the darkness, and just shifting in bed and staring at the shadows.

A novel requires a certain kind of world building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you have this sense that there are hinges that the reader doesn't see. I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them.

Imaginative empathy is one of the great gifts that humans have, and it means that we can live more than one life. We can picture what it would be like from another perspective.

Our sense of self is a kind of construct. It is in some ways like a novel, and it's like a fabric of fictions that we patch together from memory.

I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them.

Writing a short story is a little like walking into a dark room, finding a light and turning it on. The light is the end of the story.

I've been reading Peter Straub since I was a teenager, and his work is hardwired into my brain. A Dark Matter contains echoes of all that has been great about Straub's previous work and builds upon it. This Rashomon-like tale is as spooky and frightening as anything he has written, but it's also an intense and moving celebration of love. Out of the darkness comes, ultimately, a surprising and haunting sense of joy.