I started writing, or rather, thinking, stories as a child, and at that time the reason was very clear.

See, I have no journalism in my background, so I wasn't practised at research or writing non-fiction, nor at handling the truth in a journalistic way. Journalists know when to call a halt and write something, but I kept on looking for answers.

We didn't have a phone when I was a kid, and I was too shy to smash any public phones, and our town didn't have a pool hall either, so I had to hang out at the public library - and anyway, I told myself stories.

Most publishers seem very reluctant to publish short story collections at all; they bring them out in paperback, often disguised as novels.

Anything can happen in SF. And the fact that nothing ever does happen in SF is only due to the poverty of our imaginations, we who write it or edit it or read it. But SF can in principle deal with anything.

Whatever I'm reading at the moment seems to influence whatever I'm writing.

SF has at least the advantage of not depending on preconceptions.