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

If my novel gets any attention in Bulgaria, it will be as a scandal: a book about a teacher at a famous school and his relationship with a prostitute. I doubt very much it will be evaluated on its merits as literature. If Bulgarian were the book's only language, that would be painful and limiting to me as a writer. Since my book also exists in English - where it isn't scandalous at all - I feel comfortable with the possibility of scandal.

I'm drawn to fiction that hints at nonfiction, that blurs or seems to blur the boundaries between invention and autobiography.

I think one reason I'm drawn to expansive syntax is that arias are so often exercises in extending language as a means of intensifying feeling.

I realized that there was an intellectual content in music, a kind of thinking, that I would never be able to hear.

My first MFA was in poetry, and it was very much part of a professional trajectory leading to life as a professor. But in my second and third years at Harvard, I realized I didn't want an academic life.

Being a high school teacher was wonderful, but unsustainable: I needed a way out.