Even though I don't sing any more, singing was my first education in the arts, and it's clear to me that my training as a musician also shaped me as a writer.

I'm not sure I can articulate any principles behind the decisions about what to cut and what to keep.

Even though I don't sing any more, singing was my first education in the arts, and it's clear to me that my training as a musician also shaped me as a writer.

I take pleasure as a reader in books that tease with a kind of urgency of the real, even if it's only a manufactured effect.

I am a gay writer, absolutely. And in no way does that fact limit the reach or importance of what I write.

For me, music was always a second language. I didn't have a musical background, and I started studying very late, at fourteen.

Writing the novel felt so private to me! I think publishing a novel is quite public and exposing, and what's a little frightening to me right now is the fact that it feels so entirely opposed to the privacy that is writing.