I've been a dad since I was nineteen, so I think a lot about fatherhood and the power of that sacrifice in your life.

He considered it a shame when people couldn't grasp the infinite-a failure not just of imagination but of simple vision.

You take something from your past that you're somewhat ashamed about and you write about it from another character's point of view.

I wrote short stories for seven years and used to mail them out. You couldn't send them by e-mail. I called them manila boomerangs. I'd seal the self-addressed stamped envelope inside an envelope and I'd mail it off, and it would come back six weeks later with a rejection letter in it.

I pretty much drink a cup of coffee, write in my journal for a while, and then sit at a computer in my office and torture the keys. My one saving grace as a writer is that, if I'm having trouble with the novel I'm writing, I write something else, a poem or a short story. I try to avoid writer's block by always writing something.

At peace? Who but the insane would ever be at peace? What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough? Who could live even a day and not feel the sweet ache of regret?

I realized the structure in a collection is how they're put together. Structuring the collection became the art of it for me. Because the stories had all been written.