I've always been interested in the form itself, so I always feel like I've never been good at going ahead with the artifice and not acknowledging the self in the artistic process, and not acknowledging the absurdity of pretending that's required in fiction.

The air is like being wanted, we say, and they nod approvingly. The air is like getting older, they say, and they touch our arms gently.

I don't mean to beat a made-in-America drum, but I would be lying if I said it doesn't feel somehow right to be printing books in the U.S.

So this is the space during tutoring hours. It's very busy. Same principles: one-on-one attention, complete devotion to the students' work and a boundless optimism and sort of a possibility of creativity and ideas.

Every time my brain parks the car neatly in the driveway, my mouth drives through the back of the garage.

You invite things to happen. You open the door. You inhale. And if you inhale the chaos, you give the chaos, the chaos gives back.

Through the small tall bathroom window the December yard is gray and scratchy, the tree calligraphic.