Love is an indescribable sensation - perhaps a conviction, a sense of certitude.

And I’m drawn to failure. I often write about it, and I’m sympathetic with it, I think, because I feel I’m contending with it constantly in my own life.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

None of the rest of my life figures here.

I don't read for amusement, I read for enlightenment. I do a lot of reviewing, so I have a steady assignment of reading. I'm also a judge for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which gives awards to literature and nonfiction.

We are all regionalists in our origins, however 'universal' our themes and characters, and without our cherished hometowns and childhood landscapes to nourish us, we would be like plants set in shallow soil. Our souls must take root - almost literally.

Much of my writing is energized by unresolved memories - something like ghosts in the psychological sense.