Rich children are always blond, Jocelyn goes. It has to do with vitamins.

I write my first draft by hand, at least for fiction. For non-fiction, I write happily on a computer, but for fiction I write by hand, because I'm trying to achieve a kind of thoughtless state, or an unconscious instinctive state. I'm not reading what I write when I wrote. It's an unconscious outpouring that's a mess, and it's many, many steps away from anything anyone would want to read. Creating that way seems to generate the most interesting material for me to work with, though.

There's something very strange about associating me with that prize. I had hoped for it in a more directed way as a journalist. Somehow as a journalist you know there are Pulitzers out there and you can work hard and get one. To win it for Fiction seems unbelievable.

That we have some history together that hasn’t happened yet.

Oh we'll know each other forever, Bix says. The days of losing touch are almost gone.

When does a fake Mohawk become a real Mohawk? Who decides? How do you know if it's happened?

Kissing Mother Superior, incompetent, hairball, poppy seeds, on the can.