I sat around the kitchen every Sunday afternoon listening to my mother and aunts talk about the people in the neighborhood. Gossip - I loved it. And that turns out to be the writer's job: to attend to the gossip and spread it as far as you can.

In revision, your imagination becomes deeply engaged with your material. It's when you come to know your characters and begin to perceive their motivations and values.

I was reading for understanding. I wanted to do to a reader what Salinger did for me.

We all sleep with the corpses of our dead lovers.

Drug programs began to turn their attention and money away from prevention and into maintenance. Methadone was cheaper than social workers, I suppose.

You can't possibly conduct a proper affair without a lot of deliberating, scheming, speculating, and conniving. It's a delicate balance where the excitement must equal the guilt and sex must be as bright as the future you gamble.

Place is character. And all writing is regional.