I had an all-Fear of Music iPod, just versions of the 11 songs from the record. No other songs allowed.

A reader, encountering a sentence about a barking dog, would have to dwell on why that choice was made at that moment. Everything in a novel is explicitly chosen, whereas some of what a film captures feels incidental, according to the vagaries of photography and sound recording.

There were days when no kid came out of his house without looking around. The week after Halloween had a quality both hungover and ominous, the light pitched, the sky smashed against the rooftops.

For me, music is sort of the art that I can't incorporate into my person the way I want to.

Poetry is supposed to be musical. But people don't understand prose. They're so used to reading journalism - clunky, functional sentences that convey factual information - facts, more than just the surfaces of things.

I grew up with an artist father, and my parents' friends were also mainly artists or writers, so he connects what I do with his example.

I work on a laptop specifically so I can work in cafes and pretend I'm part of the human world.