I love words; I love the way they sound. Once I've worked on everything else, the last drafts of my books come down to how they sound.

So, yes, at least from my end. You could say there's a lot of Alison [McGhee] in Gollie too.

Take this squirrel, for instance. Ulysses. Do I believe he can type poetry? Sure, I do believe it. There is much more beauty in the world if I believe such a thing is possible.

The way we started was, Alison [McGhee] said, 'Tall girl, short girl.' We had no plans beyond that.

I would hesitate to say the characters [ in Bink & Gollie] are too related to either to us [me and Alison McGhee], but they certainly draw on our physical traits and personality traits and then exaggerate them to the nth degree.

There ain't a body, be it mouse or man, that ain't made better by a little soup.

Her sister, Holly McGhee, is an agent, and she's my agent in New York. She's Alison's agent too. Even though Alison lives here in Minneapolis, I met Alison through Holly, when Holly came to Minneapolis to visit Alison.