My oldest sister was an actress living in NYC by the time I was ten, and desperately wanted to be the one in charge of the words.

If men are paid/praised more than women for the same work than it always pays to allow the man to have more freedom to pour himself into his work - think of athletes, actors over the age of 28, lawyers, accountants, college deans.

Writing across genres has made me more prolific. When one is fighting me or simply not cutting it, I turn to another.

Red Sox fans have been pushed to the brink over the years, but that's how faith grows stronger.

You learn to exploit genre for the more important things - to my mind - like story, character, image, language.

Is it wrong to kill something that wants to kill you?

I wrote before I could write. I got my hands on a journal, maybe a hand-me-down; I had three older siblings. My first entries are in the handwriting of the sister closets in age (5 years my senior). She must have gotten tired of my dictations because she gave up and then my blocky scrawl shows up. I wrote plays as a kid mostly.